Cheers! Czech beer culture given status of ‘intangible cultural heritage’
The Ministry of Culture has added Czech beer and brewing culture to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Czech Republic, a step towards its inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Czechs may well feel that beer is an inseparable part of their country’s culture, and now it’s official. Minister of Culture Martin Baxa on January 30th announced that the Czech traditions of beer and brewing have been awarded the status of ‘intangible cultural heritage’. The announcement was made at a special ceremony, during which he presented a commemorative certificate to representatives of brewers. The special status was recommended by the National Council for Traditional Folk Culture, and the nomination was prepared by the Czech Beer and Malt Association. The association’s executive director, Tomáš Slunečko, explained what exactly is meant by ‘beer culture’:
“It is really a story, the story of all the related activities that revolve around Czech beer. Czech beer culture has been developing for centuries, and it connects the smallest rural pubs with renowned city pubs, restaurants, and guests with pub owners. I would also say that the inclusion also appreciates the cultivation of the landscape in the form of growing hops and barley, and involves farmers, traditional crafts, brewers, bartenders and so on. What I really want to say is primarily that beer culture is a very important part of people spending time together. Above all, we want to have a culture of people meeting, exchanging opinions and supporting community. That's very important in this day and age.”
What though does its inclusion on the list actually offer Czech beer culture? The aim is to protect and develop this aspect of cultural heritage in Czechia by recognising and promoting both the producers and sellers of the popular drink.
More concretely, brewers and ministers also have a higher accolade in their sights; Minister of Agriculture Marek Výborný, who in a statement described beer as “a drink of human togetherness”, hopes that Czech beer will someday be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, just as the town of Žatec and its landscape of Saaz hops were in 2023.
Czechia is not the first country in Europe to take this step; Germany and Belgium have also designated some types of their beer as intangible cultural heritage, although Czechia differs in its promotion of light-coloured and well-hopped lager.
The official status of Czech beer might also help it to survive in the face of changing drinking habits. A combination of greater choice for customers, concerns about alcoholism, and changes in habits caused by the Covid-19 pandemic seem to be having an effect on how much beer Czechs are drinking. In 2023, Czech breweries brewed 2.7% less beer year-on-year, and, according to data from the Czech Statistical Office, beer consumption in 2023 fell by 9.7 litres to 133.2 litres per person per year. Tomáš Slunečko again, commenting on the changes to traditional beer culture:
“It is disappearing a little bit now … because the younger generation is somewhere else, they're online, but we would like to get those people back into restaurants and pubs through Czech beer culture and through the registration as intangible cultural heritage, so that they can meet us!”
