Pilsner Urquell celebrates its 180th birthday at the Downtown Beer Festival

Pilsner Urquell is already 180 years old

Bavarian master brewer Joseph Groll created a style and a category that later became independent in Plzeň, when in 1842 he brought the best raw materials from around the Czech city into harmony with the bottom-fermented lager brewing technology already proven in his homeland: the special, two-row malt made from smooth-skinned Moravian barley, the also locally grown Žatec (German name Saaz) hops, as well as the extremely soft artesian water from the Plzeň basin, which springs from a depth of 100 meters.

Being a bottom-fermented beer, Pilsner Urquell must be kept between 0 and 6 °C during fermentation and lagering. This is the temperature range that provides perfect conditions for the yeasts to do their work and for the father of all pilsner-type beers to be born. The perfect process required a complete underground tunnel system 180 years ago. Before the first batch of the original gold-colored Pilsen was completed on October 5, 1842, miners spent three years digging underground passages and rooms with hand tools. The entire 9 km long tunnel system was fully completed by the 1950s, and the ice rink was used until 1987 as a backup system in case the artificial cooling failed.