A trip to Prague and Pilsen offers Gothic grandeur, friendly locals – and plenty of good Czech beer

Spas are fragrant places with plinkety-plunk music. They don’t tend to include baths full of lager. But the Purkmistr beer spa outside the Czech town of Pilsen offers precisely that.

At this steamy hotspot I stepped into a wooden bathtub with hot, beer-infused water — and was given a dimpled, litre beer mug to fill from a barrel by the bath.

Both the beer — and me, sorry to say — were bottomless. I felt like Cleopatra for about £30 (purkmistr.cz), and it left me delirious.

Majestic: Oliver Bennett explored the ‘beer, gastronomy and culture’ of the Czech Republic, with a stop at Prague’s Charles Bridge (pictured) included on his tour 

I had come to Prague and Pilsen on a trip to enjoy beer, gastronomy and culture in anticipation of the 30th anniversary of the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, on January 1. Nowadays, the capital Prague has a reputation for stag-and-hen mayhem. Luckily, the city is dialling down the swill-and-spill gang, and going for gourmands.

So, soon after touchdown I dived into a deep Czech repast of garlic soup and duck in the Cafe Imperial (cafeimperial.cz), a place of Habsburgian grandeur, and met guide Eva Vondrusova who rhapsodised about King Wenceslas, ‘the father of the Czech nation’.

This ‘Good King’, also the patron saint of wine, looks after the Republic and under threat, his heroic Wenceslas Square statue will spring to life and lead a zombie army to war. Don’t even think about it, Putin.

On a crisp morning, I mustered at the Strahov Monastery overlooking Prague. Here Eva showed me the finest view of the city, artfully arranged around the Vltava river, as eternal as Rome in the spring light.

Oliver enjoyed ‘the finest view’ of Prague from the Strahov Monastery, which has a stunning interior (above)

I wandered downhill through artists’ quarter Hradcany, a Montmartre of Prague full of gorgeous gabled homesteads, then through the lovely Mala Strana district towards Prague’s crowning glory, the Charles Bridge.

More boulevard than river crossing, this monument has its fair share of bums and buskers. But nothing can dent its grandeur and there, frozen in stone, is a row of statues including Wenceslas, blessing the thousands of tourists who propose marriage here each year.

‘We Czechs prefer Petrin Hill for proposals,’ said Eva. ‘The bridge is for you lot.’

Was it quite time for lunchtime beer yet? Not far off, but first I had to make my tankard.

At the Prague Glass Experience (pragl.glass) an engaging Australian called Matthew, who like so many travellers had landed in the Czech capital as if by accident, gave me an introduction: ‘Grab this pipe, get the molten glass on the end, blow slowly — and don’t touch the hot bit.’

Prague’s ‘excellent’ Museum of Communism, pictured, holds many mordant reminders of pre-1989 privations

I left an hour later with a wonky light-green glass tankard that looked like a mint Aero, the fitting result of a new skill in the UN Year of Glass.

Matthew’s blistering workshop was thirst-making and at the Stupartska restaurant (pivnicestupartska.cz), an Arts and Crafts-style interior with an unapologetically carnivorous menu, I faced down lashings of lager and a giant knuckle of pork as Eva expanded on the country’s split from Slovakia.

‘It was terrible and families had to make a choice whether to be one or the other,’ she said, adding that the latest political trend was the country’s anti-EU movement, known as ‘Czexit’.

Oliver soaked in a beer-infused bath at the Purkmistr beer spa outside the Czech town of Pilsen (pictured) 

History moves on, and in the afternoon I tarried in the excellent Museum of Communism (muzeumkomunismu.cz), with many mordant reminders of pre-1989 privations such as a shop set with hardly any goods. The museum made the leap to bustling Cerveny Jelen (cervenyjelen.cz) even more incredible. In the centre of this former palace was a tower of tanks of unpasteurised lager, high as a stack of amps at a Status Quo gig — and perfect for its menu full of modern Czech classics.

Eva showed me the ways to pour Pils: snyt, some foam; hladinka, more foam; mliko, all foam.

‘These are almost spiritual matters to Czechs,’ she said.

Most tourists get stuck in Prague. But a contender for best beer town is 60 miles away, an hour by train.

Pilsen is a well-heeled town that gave the world Emil Skoda of car fame, Petr Cech of goalie fame — and Pils lager of beer fame.

A beer town with several breweries, its pride is Pilsner Urquell: a village-sized brewery that celebrates its 180th birthday this year.

Inside the Pilsner Urquell brewery, pictured, Oliver discovered a malty labyrinth filled with rows of massive barrels full of the ‘world’s finest lager’

I was met by guide Martina. A tour here is surprisingly interesting even for those unmoved by fermentation, mostly because beneath the brewery is a skein of damp tunnels 12 miles long.

In this malty labyrinth are rows of massive barrels full of the world’s finest lager — and a couple of bars. For £18 pp, 15 people can hire these troglodytic taverns for three hours, served by a barmaid who counts customers in and out.

As Martina said, ‘We’ve lost people down here.’

Emerging into the light, I walked around the handsome provincial town to see St Bartholomew cathedral, the Great Synagogue, the interiors of early 20th-century architect Adolf Loos, and the Zapadoceske museum, which has an exhaustive selection of old swords and muskets — perhaps for Wenceslas’s zombie army.

Back at the Parkanu pub (about £1.90 a pint, naparkanu.com) I handled a hladinka-style beer and through the foam, reflected that in the Czech Republic, a p***-up in a brewery can be a rich cultural experience.