Beer at Plzen, Czech Republic!

Finally, it's April 2007 and I got to see the 3rd largest brewery in the world!!!  The Pilsner Urquell Beer World in Plzen, Czech Republic.  It's about an hour outside of the center of Prague (we were so excited i think we lost concept of time).  Pilsner Urquell is run and owned by SAB Miller ( a company coalition between South African Brewery and Miller).  We had an honor of having a specially guided tour along with my Philly team, some of the English team, and the whole Canadian team and thier entourage.  We started off the tour watching a narrated video about the history of the pilsner and then we moved to touring the old brewery to the new state of the art brewery building.  Then the tour continues on to miles of underground caverns/cellars that housed god knows worth of barrels of unpasteurized, unfiltered beer waiting to be tapped and thrown down the cellars of our own waiting and thirsty gut.

..  And yeah, that's exactly what we did at the end, sample some fresh beers right out of a freshly tapped barrel (and then some).  Just to be whisked away into the souvineer shop which had you wondering the next day why you bought so much unecessary items after a drinking and shopping accident.  But all together this is a must see place if you're in the Praha area!

...On the side, after the tour we got to visit the Cez Arena in Plzen.  The Cez Arena is a major sporting venue that houses Plzen's ice hockey team, a few world cup games, I'm sure a few figure skating events, and that day lacrosse, which showcases the Oshawa Green Gaels from Canada vs. the Czech National Team... and YES the Canadians kicked ass and NO they didn't drink as much as we did...