Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience is a multimedia sensory attraction in the centre of Prague – it’s all about the beer.
Note that this isn’t the Pilsner Urquell brewery – that remains about 85 km away in Pilsen and has its own tour.
The entrance is on 28. října street, close to the bottom of Wenceslas Square (Václavské náměstí).
The building used to house the Gallery of Steel Figures which has moved to Celetná street, just a few metres from the Old Town Square.
Inside is a large atrium, with ticket booth, free cloakroom and piece of art where you can also pose for a photo.
Adult ticket is 490 Kč (price as of January 2024).
Each person is provided with a headset set to their preferred language: CZ, EN, DE, FR, IT, SP, JP and CN are available, although note that one small part of the experience is only in English and that the ‘Tapster Academy’ add-on is only available in English and Czech.
The ‘experience’ starts on the First Floor – there are both steps and an elevator up.
An ornate entrance welcomes you inside.
There are several rooms, each telling the story of Pilsner Urquell using multimedia projections. Your headset tells you when to move to the next room. You could skip ahead to the first beer sampling, but your visit would then be very short and a waste of money. Child tickets are available, but I think children would be really bored here.
Visitors need to wait, at the entrance to the beer sampling room, until there are enough to start a presentation. On a quiet day in January there were just five of us – each allocated an illuminated beer mat with a small glass of Pilsner Urquell.
The barman was friendly and, in English, extoled the virtues of the beer we were sampling. Then, there was an interaction between him and an animated painting of the first brewmaster. This type of thing requires a big personality, both from the animation and most importantly the human component – it’s the sort of thing American wannabee actors do well, but Czechs are a bit too shy to make it work. Still, nice beer break – bar stools would have been nice.
Headsets back on, we continued into another room, where we each stood in front of a console and heard about the ingredients. It took a while to realise that the cannisters could be opened and ingredients examined.
The next room had three games, each of which involved interacting with a video wall and the winner was the person with the most points.
We returned our headsets and received two beer tokens to use in the beer hall.
During our tour, we’d learned that, in addition to the classic beer pour (hladinka) with a large head, there is ‘more foam than head’ (šnyt) and ‘mostly foam’ (mlíko). We tried one of each of these pours.
Our ticket didn’t include the ‘Tapster Academy’ – a small room with beer taps, close to the main bar, where it’s possible to learn how to pour a perfect beer. That addon costs 659 Kč extra for an hour’s class.
It’s possible to order more drinks and also food – the pub is only accessible to ticket holders. Prices are more expensive than a regular Czech pub, especially for wine, which is ridiculous 145 Kč for a 0.15l glass of inexpensive Czech wine.
We took the elevator down to the ground floor and exited through the gift shop. Wow! The shop is huge and has just about every branded item you can think of from keychains to sneakers.
Oddly, no umbrellas, perhaps the most likely thing you might be tempted to purchase.
We enjoyed our visit and so long as you’re interested in learning about, and also drinking, Pilsner Urquell, you will too. If you like these types of tours, then try and visit the Slivovitz Museum across the river in Malá Strana.
Outside, there is a small bar, Věčep U Zvonu, open to the public, just to the right of the main entrance. Whereas, the beer hall was themed, this bar looked a bit too bright and clinical. Prices were the same as the beer hall. I can’t imagine this place attracts that many customers, although I assume that the beer is very good.
Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience
28. října 377/13, Prague, Czech Republic
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