Budweiser Budvar’s Visitor Centre is ready for the main tourist season

Budweiser Budvar’s Visitor Centre has long been focusing on tourist care, offering a wide range of services, such as tours of the brewing premises and the multimedia exposition “The story of the beer from Budweis” in the first instance. Visitors can learn about the brewing secrets of Budweiser Budvar Premium Lager, which belongs amongst the best-known Czech products worldwide. Tasting non-pasteurised and unfiltered beer directly in the lager cellar makes the tour very attractive for Czech and foreign visitors over 18 years of age.  The tour of the brewery can be nicely rounded off by savouring a perfectly treated pint or delicacies of traditional Czech cuisine either in the stylish Budvar restaurant directly in the brewery’s premises or in the renowned Masné krámy restaurant.

For the future, the Visitor’s Centre is considering launching an important technical innovation - a portable audio tour-guide, which will be available in several languages, e.g. Hungarian, Polish and Dutch. Furthermore, Budweiser Budvar’s Visitor centre’s manager Pavlína Kaňková, has brought in another introduction: “With regard to great interest of tourists in purchasing glasses and other souvenirs labelled with our logo we have decided to launch the retail of these souvenirs via the Internet in the very near future.”

The Visitor Centre prepared an interesting offer for February and March, as on every Saturday each visitor could take part in the brewery’s tour free. Additionally, if the visitor attended a tour with friends (further 4 persons), he or she received a voucher for a 5-litre keg of Budweiser Budvar Premium Lager. This offer is effective till the end of August.

A great call for Budweiser Budvar’s tours is conformed by last year’s numbers. A total of 41,341 visitors viewed the production premises of the brewery in 2009, which is a number comparable to the visit rate of the castles Třeboň or Zvíkov. If a comparison from a different sphere of life were to be used, such a number of visitors could fill up the Budvar Arena in České Budějovice nearly seven times. Budweiser Budvar thus quite rightly ranks amongst the most attractive tourist destinations in the south of Bohemia. On a long-term basis, the interest in the tours has been rising; the 2002 number of visitors amounted to only about 21,000.

The Visitor Centre is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. upon a previous mail or telephone order, with Mondays and Sundays closed in January and February. Every working day (in the summer as well as at weekends) at 2 p.m. people can take part in a tour even without a prior booking. All Visitor Centre’s guests are taken care of by a team of 12 tour-guides and four receptionists. Further details on Budweiser Budvar tours can be found at www.budejovickybudvar.cz  

Brewery tours
The tours of the brewery’s brewing premises are led by professional tour-guides with a detailed commentary and available in Czech as well as six other world languages. Visitors can also taste non-pasteurised and unfiltered beer directly from a lager tank as a part of the tour, which lasts approximately 60 minutes and is suitable for groups of 5 - 50 people. The tour must be ordered in advance and takes place daily. Through their tour-guide, visitors can learn about the brewing secrets of Budweiser Budvar Premium Lager, which lies particularly in using top-quality raw materials (Moravian barley, Žatec hops and water from artesian wells) as well as thorough adherence to the traditional brewing procedure under the supervision of experienced maltsters.  

Multimedia exposition “The story of the Budweiser Beer”
The multimedia exposition “The story of Budweiser Beer” outlines the history of brewing in České Budějovice (Budweis) in a comprehensible and entertaining way. The history of both the town and the brewery comes to life on large screens, in holograms and during 3-D projections. Visitors virtually get to the depth of 300m below the ground in the crate of the logging lift. During the exposition, visitors will get to feel the atmosphere surrounding the town’s origination , they can have a look into the life of a medieval brewing house and they can experience Budweiser Budvar’s whole history as well as getting to know the background of the trademark disputes. The commentary is available in five languages. The tour lasts 50 minutes and is suitable for groups of 1 - 24 people. The tour must be ordered in advance and takes place daily.

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