The house at U Fleků
On Křemencova street in the New Town of Prague stands a house with a courtyard and a series of dark halls. It is called U Fleků, after one of its early owners, and the tradition is that beer has been brewed there since 1499. It is usually counted among the oldest working brewpubs in Europe, though like most such claims the early history rests on a small number of records.
The house brews one beer, a dark lager of the strength that Czech brewers call thirteen degrees. It is sweet and roasted, with some bitterness at the end, and it is made on the premises.
A beer hall in a city of pubs
The halls seat hundreds, with long wooden tables, painted walls and carved ceilings, and the house has a courtyard garden. The menu is roast pork, dumplings and cabbage. It is much visited by tourists, but it is also still used by neighbours for the occasional lunch or birthday.
The degrees on a Czech beer label measure the amount of dissolved sugar in the wort before fermentation, and so give an idea of its strength. We return to them in our article on the Czech pub.