A Beer-Drinker's Odyssey Begins on the River Vltava 3

[Boss]

The art of brewing beer came along gradually, with help along the way. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, for instace, was a friend of the beer industry even though he ordered that Burgundy grape vines be cultivated in Bohemia. Emperor Rudolf II's personal physician held that beer was an incredibly healthy beverage and wrote a treatise to that effect. The Czech beer industry's worldwide fame dates from the Renaissance, as does the Bohemian tavern which is famous throughout Europe. A popular rhyme of the time goes "Unus papa Romae, una cerevesia Raconae"("one pope in Rome, one beer in Rakovnik." Beer is still brewed in Rakovnik today. In the early 16th century, the Czech beer industry contributed as much as 87% of total municipal income to city coffers. Czech hops were being shipped up the Elbe to the special Hamburg hops market from 1101, and the Germans still prize Bohemian Saaz hops from Zatec today. The Czechs were even exporting their beer at this time, most notably the beer they brewed in the town of Ceske Budejovice in south Bohemia. The Bavarians who were importing this beer understandably had a hard time pronouncing the name of the town, and so they referred to it as "Budweis," a place name that is still associated with great beer today - as is Pilsner, which is derived from the place name of the west Bohemian town of Plzen.
This 16th-century beer heaven was not to last. Feudal lords discovered that forcing their laborers to drink the manor brew was a clever way to line their pockets.The Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of northern Europe, devastated the Czech beer industry as well. At one point, beer was used to pay off a Swedish army to prevent the plunder of Kutna Hora. After that, what fame the Czech beer industry managed to attain was under the auspices of the Emperor in Vienna. He even sent a Czech brewmaster to Mexico to teach the Mexicans how to brew beer. Bohemia beer from Mexico was named for the Czech contribution. The Czech nation - and its beer - did not begin to recover until the "national awakening" movement of the 19th century, when the Czech language, Czech culture, and Czech beer were reinvented after centuries of Germanization and decline.