Social Events

"U Flekù"

Instead Of An Introduction
Mix four types of malt in proportion (do not forget the dark roasted one), grind it, put it in lauter tun, add water and warm it up to 38°C, mash it up to 50°C, pour it over into mash tun, warm it up to the temperature of 75°C and later on to the boiling point, put it back to a tun which for a while you will call the filtering tun and let it rest for a moment. When the brewer's grains sink to the bottom, pump the wort over into second tun (let us call it wort copper now). Add a pinch (or as a matter of a fact a good basket!) of hop and boil for two hours. Then pump it over through hop filter onto wort cooler, where thanks to the evaporation twelve changes into thirteen, let it flow through plate copper, which cools the wort down to 70°C. After this, put it into 25 hl vessels in the fermenting cellar, add the yeast and let it ferment. After thirteen days, pump it over into stainless tanks, leave it to mature for thirty days and you can broach a dark lager with a ruby spark, real original thirteen with nearly five percents of alcohol.
Nevertheless, be careful! The desired result comes only in case you execute everything in the ancient but at the same time modern brewery U Flekù and in just as ancient rooms of the famous restaurant of the same name.

A Bit Of History Will Not Hurt
The antiquity of the Flek's House is manifested in the gothic walls of the cellar that reach to the ground floor in some places. Written reference about the house Na Kremenci dates back as early as to 1430 when it belonged to dyer named Peter. As the centuries passed, the house underwent many changes, times of prosperity and decline.
We know for sure that in the year 1499, when the maltster Vít Skremenec and his wife Dorota bought the house from Heinrich Skremenec the malting trade commenced here.
1511 Rehor married a widow after Vít Skremenec and called himself Skremenec. Rehor bought also the neighbouring houses, including the Medulánský House, where there was also a brewery.
1533 son Vavrinec with his wife Magdaléna took the house over. But he lacked his father' s skill and in the year
1537, having had several unsuccessful years, he sold the brewery to maltster Vavrinec Kremenec.
1548 Petr Branburk from Roklín bought the brewery.
1561 his son Václav took the house over and sold it to Blazej Kantùrek within a short time.
1576 Ludmila called Skremencová acquired the house. She married four times - brewers Bartolomìj Dubský, Joachim Vratislavský, Vranovec and painter Vít Fric. During Missis Ludmila's life the brewery experienced the second period of prosperity. After her death, her widower Matìj Vranovec married Katerina Ulrichová in 1619. After the White Mountain Battle she opted for exile, the property was confiscated, decayed and deteriorated.
1637 the brewery was returned back to Katerina's Catholic relatives Apolena and Jan Ulrich. Apolena passed it over to Veronika Vranovecká.
1651 Václav and Dorota Karolides bought the decayed facility.
1653 the house is referred to as empty and uninhabited.
1658 Jan Karolides acquired the house after quarrels with his relatives.
1675 the house was passed to Ondrej Borovanký, who, in the flick of the wrist, sold it cheaply to Eliás Myslík and his wife Katerina.
1697 ownership of the house was transferred to Frantisek Malý of Tulejov and his wife Katerina, born as Myslíková.
1722 Vojtìch Záhoranský with his wife Ludmila bought the house in auction and they made it a success (in 1725 the brewery brewed 19 batches - that equals to 380 barrels - of maximum 24 permitted).
1762 Jakub Flekovský with his wife Dorota bought the facility. Their son Stepán inherited the brewery. Family of Flekovký continued in successful improving and promoting the enterprise. The name of the brewery "U Flekù", which survived for more than two centuries and is used now, came from this family.
1792 Alzbìta Zatecká bought the brewery.
1801 Jakub and Ludmila Prchal.
1804 Frantisek and his wife Rozina Práchner bought the enterprise.
1807 after F. Práchner's death Frantisek Pstross, who married the widowed Rozina, took over the brewery. The Pstross family had held ownership of the brewery for more than a hundred years (Benedikt since 1864, Karel Frantisek since 1883 and his widow Jakobína after his death in 1917).
1809 F. Pstross bought the neighbouring lot and the area reached today's expanse.
1843 the brewery U Flekù is a pioneer in brewing a dark lager in the Bavarian way, and it has been brewed here since.
1889 K. F. Pstross rented the brewery to maltsters.
1898 Josef Karel Khop rented the brewery. He introduced further major improvements to both the brewery and restaurant - in 1902 veranda Jitrnice is refurbished, an old malt room is reconstructed into the Knight's Hall.
1905 after J.K. Khop's death, Václav Brtník, who had been working in the brewery U Flekù since 1898, became maltster and after five years, a partner of the widow Marie Khopová.
1920 J.M. Khopová and Václav Brtník bought the brewery from J.Pstrossová and became co-owners.
1921 after J.M.Khopová's death Václav Brtník bought the shares from the heirs and became the only proprietor. He further improved the enterprise and managed it successfully untill 1937.
1937 the enterprise was transferred to the heirs - three Václav Brtník's sons - Josef, Václav and Frantisek, a trained brewer, who ran the brewery till 1948.
1949 the brewery was nationalized and Frantisek Brtník's family had to move to Sumava to the birthplace of Frantisek Brtník's wife Anezka. Frantisek Brtník died in 1969 at the age of 67.
1949 the nationalized brewery passed under the administration of the Prague Breweries. In 1959, the enterprise was split into the restaurant, taken over by RaJ Praha 1, and the brewery (remaining with Prague Breweries). At the beginning of the 1950's, the brewery was refurbished in the following decades, its abolition had been considered from time to time - however awareness of its uniqueness and tradition prevailed and in 1983, another reconstruction commenced and completed in 1986. The result of this reconstruction, was a modern yet still a unique historical brewery.
1991 the restaurant was returned to the Brtník family and in 1992 the brewery was given back to them as well.
1999 the Brtník family founded a museum on the premises of the brewery. In nearly five hundred years' history, the brewery U Flekù experienced many changes and certainly just as many modifications and adjustments, since the end of the 15th century and its first recorded maltster Vít Skremenec. There were rich years, as in the time of Ludmila Skremencová who had run the brewery for more than 40 years and surely controlled it with firm hand and clear head, or in the latter half of the 18th century, when it was held by the Flekovsk ý family, who brought more improvements, or in the 19th century when the brewery belonged to the Pstross' family and when brewing of dark lager in Bavarian way was launched, and namely during the times of the last two brewers at the end of the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century, J.K. Khop and Václav Brtník, when particularly the restaurant sustained substantial modifications and the brewery became famous not only in Prague and Bohemia but literally worldwide. Yet, there were also years when the brewery did not prosper. The worst period came after the White Mountain Battle and during the Thirty-Year War - the brewery stood idle, the buildings deteriorated and in 1653, it was referred to as a "ruin" at Kremenec. Nevertheless, the good spirit of brewing did not permit the extinction of a brewery with such tradition. Today, we may taste the same dark bitter-sweet potion our ancestors used to drink in the rooms breathing with antiquity, tradition and spirit of ages gone hundred and fifty years ago.

An Invitation For The Tour
Now, let us enter the beer-drinkers' and beer connoisseurs' cathedral. On the long façade of the U Flekù House, near the main entrance, the traditional Flek clock in located. Its figures are replaced with the "PIVOVAR U FLEKU" (U Fleku Brewery) inscription ,with a golden brown bear on the top. We enter through the left passage, where ages ago wheels of wagons bringing in malt rumbled, and we are in the brewery yard - long since full of barrels and casks as on the old photographs from times about 70 years ago. The walls of the brewery, restaurant and malt kiln, where there
is still a unique facility on which malt used to dry, are decorated with frescoes by painters V. H. Brunner (Procession of King Jecminek) and L. Novák.
In the loft of the brewery - called the malt loft - there is a Malt Mill. On the first floor, there is a boiling plant and a cooling facility with a sanitary station. We take the outside staircase to get to the yard. In the yard, there is a door leading to the fermenting cellar and to the former barrel washing room. An important part of the brewery is a cellar underneath three fourths of the building. A maturing lager is waiting here for thirsty guests.
From the brewery yard, we could go through the small yard and get into the restaurant, but let us rather take the main entrance from the street. On the left hand side of the passage there is a brand new taproom - beer counter - made by cabinet makers specialized in historical furniture production; from here, beer is carried to different rooms of the restaurant. Nowadays the room on the right hand side is called the Old Bohemian Room, once upon a time a gentlemen's hall. It is decorated by lunette-shaped paintings by the artist L. Novák. The Last Beer, painting on the front wall holds dominating position. "If you perished, our dear beer, quite a lot of orphans would cry for you..." The artist Novák, whose works we find nearly in all the rooms of the restaurant, created his paintings in the time of J.K. Khop as maltster here. In 1908, he was even crowned the king of the U Flekù brewery. The paintings show faces of well-known and famous faithful guests of the brewery, including comedian Jindrich Mosna, painter Bubenícek and many other important regular guests unknown to us today. Both in the past and in this century the Old Bohemian Room hosted numerous and nearly infinite array of regular guests at the gentlemen's table, at theatre crew tables and at "patriotic lot" tables, who later moved to the Knight's Hall - Emmaus.
On the left hand side - opposite the entrance into the Old Bohemian Room - there is a door leading to the Grand Hall (earlier Grand Joint) with wainscot and panel ceiling. From the big hall, we go to a small room - nicknamed Box - where journalists of Prague's newspapers used to meet.
Let us return to the passage via the Grand Hall. We pass the beer counter and behind it there is a door that leads to the most famous room - the Academy - a small room with 30 places, where the king of the U Flekù brewery L. Novák used to hold sessions from 1908. He had his own original insignia - crown decorated by four card kings, sceptre and a beer glass instead of an orb. The room itself is panelled, the wainscot is finished with a ledge-shaped shelf, the panels bear scenes of beer drinking, on wainscot there are various beer wisdoms, on the wall there are portraits of academics who spent many a while here, rather long than short, and whose works decorate the facility all over - sculptor F. Rous, painters Novák, Bubenícek and other academics, including the brewer Khop.
Portraits are located also on the clock above the door, where they replace figures. The chandelier is made of a solid wagon wheel. In front of the room there is a "king's throne" covered with leather and earlier decorated by empty tubes of colours.
Let us leave the Academy and go to the yard with several tables placed there. An ostentatious entrance leads us into the second biggest hall of the restaurant, baptised Knight's Hall in the time of its birth, but nicknamed Emmaus shortly after its opening. It was created from the old malt house and was opened for public in 1904.
It has been modified in a romantic spirit following design by architect F. Sander, allegedly following a model of one Munich brewery. Walls of the hall bear paintings by Bubenícek brothers, Vilím Trsek and L. Novák. The first brewer Vít Skremenec looks upon us in life size. Carved chairs are decorated with coats of arms of Czech towns with breweries. On the door leading to the gallery, names of brewers who worked in the U Flekù brewery since 1499 untill 1883 are immortalized. The Knight's Hall is a dignified representative hall of the restaurant, with foreign tourists coming here practically every day.
From Emmaus, we pass to the former veranda, which has been rebuilt into a long narrow hall and called Sausage. It has gothic arcades with diamond vaulting, big windows that give a good view of the garden. The decoration consists of paintings of Slovak castles and lighting bodies portraying medieval towers. Sausage was
built at the same time as the Emmaus.
Behind the Sausage, there is Václavka, converted former stables in the time of the brewer Václav Brtník and was named in his honour. It was opened in 1910 on the day of St. Wenceslas according to the tradition.
It was the place, where the youth and students used to gather and the entertainment was frequently rather wild. Václavka's windows are decorated with coloured glass ornaments, coloured windowpanes of Karlstejn and Charles Bridge are above passages.
Let us return to the front part of the brewery now. Through a narrow corridor, we pass around the kitchen - its modernization in 1992 required a considerable expenses and today up to 2,000 meals per day are being prepared here, beginning with specialities and complex menus and finishing with traditional toasts (allegedly it was the Czech actor and play writer F. F. Samberk, who introduced this tradition in 1883) - into the biggest hall "Hop Garden", the seat of the U Flekù cabaret. Visitors enter this long room with more than 200 seats from the street. The Hop Garden is decorated by paintings of Czech castles.
On the small stage, Prague artists play the old Prague cabaret for both domestic and foreign visitors. And now comes the last part of our tour - on warm summer nights,  the garden, the biggest restaurant space in Prague, encircled by the buildings of the  restaurant is usually very busy and noisy.
More than half a thousand guests may  enjoy their beer and listen to music. It is  here where our tour around the U Flekù House draws to and end. Pretty tired, aren't  we? Let us return once more to the Old  Bohemian Room in order to damp our throats with the unique dark lager - certainly not the last one - below the painting of the Last Beer by artist L. Novák, quite familiar now. While drinking we can learn a few facts and numbers.

Brewery and Restaurant U Flekù
- is the smallest brewery in Prague, one of the smallest in the Czech Republic, basically all what is brewed here is also drunk here, in average more than 2000 beer servings a day
- is maybe the best known restaurant in Prague likely in the Czech Republic
- it may host more that 1200 guests at a time
- consequently, it is one of the biggest restaurants in the country, literally millions of visitors come here from all parts of both the country and the world. there have been people who used to spend here all their evenings regularly for several decades.
And these will thus be the topic of our last chapter along with other characters that had enriched the local colour and picturesqueness of the place in the past.

The Known And Unknown,
The Eternally Alive And The Forgotten
During the last one hundred and fifty years, a period about which we have more references than about the previous centuries, there have been countless crowds of regular, occasional and coincidental quests, who used to come here. It was not only beer, but also a number of typical and unusual characters who used to come to the restaurant regularly or who even belonged to it, that made the stay more varied and picturesque. An eccentric Ferda-Matches-Europe used to offer matches in his peculiar way. His box with his firm sign has been kept in the Academy. In 1937, after his death, a nuts and pretzels seller, one handicapped Bedriska, found sixty thousand Crowns beneath pasteboard on the bottom of a box (which she honestly handed in). Pretzel maker and seller used to come here, called child Jesus for his looks. A woman radish-seller and piquant delicatessen sellers (called "svertásek" after the famous Prague delicatessen shop of brothers Schwertassek) used to offer their goods to the guests. "General MacMahon" was prominent among them thanks to his unique looks and manners.- A woman selling flowers used to come regularly, a fortune-teller sat down with the guests time to time. Those and many others contributed to the good humour of guests.
A sizable gallery of famous names and persons of all status and professions could be put together of regular guests of the U Flekù restaurant. They are portrayed in the best way in the three preserved copies of a "Cancbuch", visitors' book of the Academy kept untill the 1930s. Outstanding Prague burghers - artists, lawyers, guild masters, aldermen and even a headsman were regular guests already in the 18th century. There are few references about the first half of the 19th century - of the famous characters of artistic and patriotic circles, it was J. K. Tyl and his friends who came here occasionally. In the 60s actors from the nearby Provisional Theatre started to come here regularly, and later on also other artists from the National Theatre - cousins Josef Jirí Kolár and Frantisek Kolár, Jindrich Mosna (famous National Theatre comedian), actor and playwright Samberk (the already mentioned father of the toast tradition), actor Josef Franìk - Frankovský, sometimes Jan Neruda used to sit together with them. Around the year 1890 Jakub Arbes, Mikolás Ales, J. V. Myslbek and Jaroslav Vrchlický used to come here temporarily. A famous highwayman Babinský was a regular guest here, too. One of the smallest rooms - Academy - wrote a glorious chapter of the U Flekù House history. Painters L. Novák, allegedly the tallest Czech painter - he was two metres tall, Jindrich and Otto Bubenícek, Viktor Oliva, Václav Jansa, Vilém Trsek, Cína Jelínek, Kron, sculptors Vilém Amort, Frantisek Hergesel, Frantisek Rous, architects Kotìra, Sander, Schlaffer, actors Eduard Vojan, Rudolf Deyl, writers Jakub Arbes, Bohdan Kaminský, song composer Karel Hasler, composer Karel Weis, National Theatre dancing master Berger, stage director Stapfr, a lot of important physicians, for example neurologist professor Antonín Heveroch, urologist Milos Klika, but also traveller Alois Svojsík and a founder of Czech boy-scouts Gustav Svojsík, well-known Prague Lord Mayor dr. Baxa, entrepreneurs, businessmen and officials were the regular guests of the restaurant.
The list is far from being complete - there was a reference about the gentlemen's table in the Old Bohemian Room, headed by the Prague Lord Mayor; about the Patriotic lot, that first used to sit in the Old Bohemian Room and later on it moved to Emmaus and did honour to its name by charity and patriotic deeds. There has been no mention about Clover-field in the niche beneath the gallery in Emmaus, headed by a journalist Jetel (=clover) and  where composers Piskácek and Moor, the first radio broad-caster Dobrovolny used to sit. We did have not spoken about the table of singers' choir Typografie in the Susage... Among occasional guests we would recognize our most famous opera singer the "divine" Ema Destinová, writers Alois Jirásek, Frantisek Herites, hothead Jaroslav Hasek, Franta Sauer, Egyptologist dr. Frantisek Lexa (later on a real academician), composers Nedbal, Kricka, actor Jindrich Plachta and many, many others. Writer L. Skutina remembers how he was sitting at the table with Jan Werich and drinking the beer of the house when preparing TV programmes.
At all the times, the society that gathered in the U Flekù restaurant was heterogeneous, but unified at same time. The nights that frequently lasted until sunrise were spent in conviviality, amusement and kidding.

A Toast Instead Of An Epilogue
What else remains if we are to conclude our talks about the famous pilgrimage place of both our beer-drinkers and those who are simply curious and want to learn about this famous Czech pub, see it and absorb a bit of its unmistakable atmosphere, or interested in knowing how the original facility works, which in historical rooms unifies brewing tuns from 1905 with the most sophisticated cooling and storing facilities?
Let us raise our glasses together with those who gather here, may they be local people or foreigners, may they speak Czech, Slovak, English, German, Italian, French, Danish and who knows what other languages, and let us have a toast. Let us toast to all those who take care that the famous tradition of the U Flekù House continues successfully - the brewers, waiters, cooks as well as other staff.
Let us toast to the house itself, let it attract visitors in the future, let it maintain its tradition and fame. Let us toast to each of us - let our glass of beer of the house not be the last one, let this meeting with this hospitable house not be the last one.