A visit to Matuška brewery

I do like to keep up with my Continuing Professional Development. So how could I resist the IBD Study Tour to the Czech Republic?

Compared to previous study tours there were less breweries than before but it did include a couple of biggies, both physically and historically. The first one however was not big. 

Pivovar Matuška is a family business founded in 2009. I had come across their beer previously when in Prague, an American hoppy number that told me the brewery was definitely craft. I learnt their first beer was a dark lager which is still in production though, so a combination of traditional and modern. 

They were in the process of commissioning a combined bottle and can filler when we visited which did take a while to get my head round. I suspect it will take them a while too. 

The brew length is 30hl. They decoction mash, mostly one, sometimes two and occasionally three. The double decoction take 12 hours and the triple 16! The elegantly simple infusion mash generally takes only one hour! 

They have a two vessel brewery to add to the joy of decoction mashing. They also don't have steam mains so have a steam generator under the kettle. If I've understood my notes rightly for double decoctions the mash goes in to the kettle and after the first rest two thirds is pumped over to the Lauter Tun and the remaining third is boiled before the contents of the Lauter are returned to the kettle for mixing. Then after the second mash rest two thirds is boiled before the next re-mix and rest. 

 Decoction mashing allows different temperature rests during the mash, which for a triple decoction mash will lower the pH, breakdown protein and breakdown starch at the different stages. I'm glad people still do it, but I'm also glad I don't have to! Hurrah for liquor treatments and properly modified malt!

They have 30 - 50hl cylindro-conical unitanks and do seven brews a week. Thirty beers are made a year, with California Pale Ale making up 20% of production. They don't filter or pasteurise and give the beer a shelf life of just two months. 

We had lunch of a suspiciously pink burger at the brewery but you'll be glad to hear I didn't get the shits. 

The brewery logo was drawn by one of the family and if you look at it long enough you can see a brewery in it.

We went on to Plzeň where much I poured a vast amount of CPD down my throat at Plzeňka Plzeň. 

In the programme for the trip it said we were going to be shown the different Czech pours: foamy, even foamier and looks like milk. Or something like that. It didn't happen though which may or may not have been a good thing. It would have been interesting to hear about them, but it does look like a right load of old bollocks to me. 

When all the studying was done it was back to the hotel, where I have to say I had a cracking view from my window: