A brown bottle with a white and red label and a crown on it: if you’ve ever bought a Polish beer, it’s probably been a Tyskie, one of the most widely available brands outside of Poland.
But decades after World War II, the pale lager was forced to give up the crown on the label and bottle caps. The new communist authorities in post-war Poland told the brewery that the crown of the prince who once owned the brewery symbolized the “class enemy”.
Only in the 1980s was the crown allowed to return to this ‘Princely’ brewery in Tychy, southern Poland. You can learn these kinds of details from four centuries of brewing history in the new museum dedicated to Tyskie beers.
Visitors enter the building through a corridor containing 11,000 bottles to reach the new exhibition on the Tyskie Browary Książęce, the largest brewery complex in Poland, first founded in 1629.
You can also see the current production process, including the bottling plant, in the brewery itself, which is still in full use. Naturally, the tour ends with a freshly tapped ‘piwo’ in the museum pub.
The brewery museum, recently reopened after extensive renovations, is located south of the city of Katowice (known for the locations used in the Netflix series ‘The Witcher’) and is open from Tuesday to Saturday. Tickets start at 19 zloty (€4.40 or $4.70). Anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult.
If you’re already taking a boozy tour of the region, further north, the Polish Vodka Museum in Warsaw might be your next stop. At the former factory, located in the now trendy Praga district, visitors are introduced to the distillation process of Poland’s national drink, while discovering bartender tricks and the role vodka has played in national politics.
Visitors also learn all about how Polish vodka gained its prestigious international reputation. You can also put your new knowledge to the test with a tasting in the hotel bar and restaurant.
However, west of the Tyskie Brewery you enter the Czech Republic and head towards the historic Pilsner Urquell brewery in Pilsen.
At the Tychy Brewery Museum, Polish beer-loving tourists can marvel at an aisle of 11,000 bottles. Tomek Fryszkiewicz/browarytyskie.pl/dpa
Tyskie. one of hundreds of brands owned by brewing giant ABInBev/SAB Miller, is known for the prince’s crown in its logo. Daniel Karmann / dpa
The Tyskie Browary Książęce is said to be the largest brewery complex in Poland. Tomek Fryszkiewicz/browarytyskie.pl/dpa
