2024-07-13 07:19:55
“Domažlice is a nice town, there is a brewery, a good beer,” is already being sung in Chodsk. After a quarter of a century, beer production returned to the building of the former Domažlica malthouse and hvozd. Jana Trhlíková Müllerová, the local head brewer, also has her share in this. She was at the birth of the Domažlice brewery at a time when all plans were only on paper.
“God bless you,” reads a plaque on the wall of the brewhouse. “Before, people didn’t know that there was yeast and bacteria and they thought that God made beer, so there always had to be a cross and a bell on the brewhouse. Monks prayed that the beer would be successful, then they rang the bell to ward off evil spirits and also in order to invite the farmers who were supposed to come for threshing,” says the head brewer, who sometimes manages to guide the local brewery exhibition. Visitors can observe the entire beer production technology behind a glass wall.
In 2020, beer production returned to the building of the former malt house and woodlot from the end of the 19th century, and at the same time the place became a multifunctional cultural center of the city. In the brewery in Domažlica, which produces between 1,000 and 1,250 hectoliters per year, they have twelve lager tanks and a wide range of beers, which largely refers to the local heritage. In Domažlice, where you can still hear the typical Chod dialect, the brewing tradition dates back to the 14th century.
“On July 15th, we will have the fourth anniversary of brewing the first batch,” says the energetic head brewer, who is currently on maternity leave. She’s expecting her first child, so she’ll have to put the “baby” she’s been nursing and taking care of until now a bit behind. From the position of a responsible person, technologist and consultant, together with a colleague, she devised technological procedures and recipes from the beginning. And after the opening of the Domažlice Municipal Brewery, she started working there as head brewer and director of the adjacent beer hall.
She was close to the beer culture from an early age, as her family ran a pub. She studied mathematics and physics at grammar school and later took a liking to chemistry. From her second year at VŠCHT, she already went to the brewing laboratory. After college, she started working as a technologist for seven industrial breweries. “It was a rough school. I had to prove to the brewers there, who had been doing it for forty years, that I was worth something,” she recalls of her beginnings.
A return to traditions and modern beers
But she is already in charge of the Domažlický brewery. In her beer recipes, the thirty-year-old native returns to traditional Chod recipes. The flagship is Domažlická 12, which won the Regional Food of the Year 2023 award for the Pilsen Region and is also the most popular beer in the local beer hall.
Other beers reflect the reference to the Chod dialect, the so-called Bulačina, for which the initial “h” is typical. “Here you will find a lot of people who say haby instead of and that something must be smoked instead of smoked, just like you know it from Jiráské Psohlavci. Therefore, when we started brewing IPA beer, we knew that ours had to be called hIPA and our ALE is simply hALE,” reveals Jana Trhlíková Müllerová. They also offer Čakana 11, whose name refers to the traditional Chod axe, and Čerchov 11, which in turn is named after the local highest mountain.
Another beer with a historical story is the Two Rivers special, which pays tribute to the American soldiers who liberated Domažlice in 1945. This special is named after the town of Two Rivers in Wisconsin, which is a sister city of Domažlice. The liberating regiment was commanded by Chod descendant Matt Konop.
“The Chods say that one of us freed them. We wanted to pay tribute to this event with beer,” explains Jana Trhlíková Müllerová, adding that after the holidays they will once again prepare the Christmas special Domažlický Doppel 18. “I won the most with this, because this the beer style is not brewed by many Czech breweries. But it is again the original brand that was produced in our brewery before the First World War,” explains the brewer, adding that it is her mother’s favorite beer.
In the Pilsen region, lager is traditionally drunk the most, but the Domažlické brewery also makes beers in a more modern style. KysOláč beer was supposed to taste like a Chod cake, so they added plum puree, poppy seed macerate and lactose to the recipe. Lesmistr beer was a success, in which you could smell spruce and fir shoots. It was brewed especially for the Domažlice Municipal Forests, which operate the local brewery.
ŽenSen beer was created in turn from cooperation with the global organization Pink Boots Society, which supports and unites women in the brewing industry. Every year, a blend of hops is created, which is evaluated all over the world, and the brewers then choose a specific blend, the purchase of which supports the organization. ŽenSen is significantly bitter due to the hops used, and the beer is colored red thanks to the RedX malt.
“I will always prefer lager anyway. It’s a drinkable beer, you drink a few and you still want more,” says the head brewer, who has only been sniffing the beer for a few months now. On the occasion of the 70th year of the Chod Festival, he and his colleagues are now preparing Vavřinecké beer in the Domažlica brewery. Kozin’s wheat beer will also be a novelty. The slogan for it will be: “Until a year ha do dna.” And “hin sa hukáže” whether the beer named after the famous leader of the Chod uprising will be a success or not.