The history of the restaurant “U Medvídků” dates back to 1466. Today it’s gaining new popularity as home to the strongest beer in the world. Welcome to U Medvídků in Prague, Czech Republic. In the past century, the original brewery was converted into the first Prague cabaret and also into the one of the biggest beer hall in Prague.
The history of the “U Medvidku” building goes back to the beginnings of the 15th century. The house was named after one of its first owners, Mr. Jan Nedvídek, who founded the brewery in 1466 and manufactured beer until 1898.
Afterwards, the owners of the brewery houses could not compete with the newly-built industrial breweries; therefore, they closed their small breweries and founded the town brewery in Holešovice. Mr. Karel Vendulak, the last brewer, became the first director of the brewery. The brewery was rebuilt into one of the largest ale houses in Prague, featuring Prague’s first tingltangl/cabaret at the beginning of the 20th century.
In the 1950s, the premises was taken away from its owners, without any compensation, by a socialist government. The house deteriorated until 1989, and it wasn’t until after its return to the inheritors of the original owners that the premises underwent vast reconstruction, during which the alehouse was extended and a stylish hotel was built.
The last stage of the reconstruction was completed in 2005, when the original malt house was rebuilt as the “house of beer” featuring a brewery store, a congress hall and a mini-brewery. The first brewing batch was symbolically finished on November 17, 2004 – exactly 15 years after the “Velvet” Revolution in the Czech Republic.
“We’ve got a microbrewery in the back where we show people how beer was brewed in the past. In fact, people from around the world book brewing lessons with us. We produce about 400 hectalitres a year here. That doesn’t cover demand for U Medvídků beer, so what we brew here is only sold at the brewery itself.
And down here in the restaurant we serve Budvar.”
Indeed, U Medvídků may well be the best-known pub serving Budvar in Prague.
Today U Medvídků, which also has a small beer garden in the back, has a total capacity of 500.
And as well as operating a restaurant and hotel, it has also returned in a way to its original function, says Vladimír Jančo. The mini-brewery is biggest attraction for our guests. It makes the STRONGEST BEER in the world, XBEER-33, using historical technology.
The X-BEER Mini-brewery “U Medvídků” is at present the smallest Czech restaurant brewery. Because they like challenges, they actually got the idea to try to brew, on the contrary, the strongest beer in the Czech Republic.
And in that way X-BEER, semi-dark special was born.
X-BEER is produced by traditional technology, using special procedures at different phases of production of beer. Used for the production is the Plzeň malt and caramel malt in the maximum quantity that we are still able to mash.
How they achieve the high extract of the original hopped wort, will remain their secret, however, they do disclose that the high strength is achieved from barley malt only.
The main fermentation proceeds in open oak fermentation tanks for 14 days. The end fermentation proceeds in oak barrels for 14 weeks and then, after adding a special yeast strain, secondary fermentation proceeds for another 14 weeks.
Under the conditions of “manual” production of beer, each brewing of produced X-BEER is an original that will differ by strength.
The premiere brewing has the marking X-BEER 30 which means that they produced the so-called thirty with the content of alcohol of 11.8%.
From the first brewing they bottled only 500 bottles, each of them bears its original number and a labe that warns, “never drink it alone”.
X-BEER is beer that has no equivalent in the Czech Republic at the present time. It is remarkable by the natural malt taste with a pleasant bitter after-effect. The high content of alcohol and sugar together with higher hopping, speed up markedly the absorption of alcohol to the blood. Therefore, they do recommend cautious consumption.
U Medvídků brewery ranks among the oldest known breweries in Europe. The brewery was named after one of its first owners Jan Medvídek.
U Medvídků brewery prides itself for observing the original medieval procedures of beer production which also include beer fermentation in wooden barrels. Because of it, the brewery belongs to one of the smallest ones in the Czech Republic in terms of volumes production; a maximum annual sales volume is 300 hectoliters of the 13 degrees semi dark lager called OLDGOTT which belongs to local specialties and that you can taste as part of the Brewery Tour & Beer Tasting U Medvídků.
Of course, what goes better with beer then old-fashioned Czech food.
Hearty and home-cooked, they serve the famous traditional classics in their restaurants. Like this Prague ham on the bone with horseradish, mustard and gherkin…
Or these delicious delights…
And during the reconstruction of the restaurant, a hotel was built in the historical premises with 45 rooms.
The hotel is exceptional thanks to its preserved Gothic rafters and Renaissance painted ceilings.
You can watch a video to get the feel…
See more photographs, read reviews or make a reservation through TripAdvisor.
ADDRESS
U Medvídků
Na Perštýně 7, 100 01 Prague 1
Czech Republic
PHONE
00420 736 662 900
WEBSITE
https://umedvidku.cz/en/
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