The Czech Ministry of Culture has included Czech beer culture on the country’s intangible cultural heritage list, which brings it one step closer to possible inclusion on the UNESCO register, Culture Minister Martin Baxa (ODS) told reporters today.
He confirmed the entry by presenting a commemorative certificate to representatives of the brewing industry.
There are over 550 breweries in the Czech Republic; the brewing sector employs about 65,000 people and brought CZK 29 billion in taxes to the state budget in 2023.
The National Council for Traditional Folk Culture recommended the listing, which is aimed at protecting and developing the Czech Republic’s intangible cultural heritage. The Czech Beer and Malt Association drafted the nomination in cooperation with experts.
The Czech Republic becomes the third European country, after Germany and Belgium, to designate its beer culture as an intangible cultural heritage. Belgian beer culture was added to the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016.
“We make no secret of the fact that we would also like to seek UNESCO listing in the future. Now we have to prove that we can take care of our beer culture and develop it, and then we will see,” said Tomas Slunecko, Executive Director of the Czech Beer and Malt Association.
According to the brewers’ association, Czech beer culture connects the smallest rural pubs with large famous urban pubs and restaurants, their guests and proprietors. Entry into the Czech intangible heritage list recognises the cultivation of the countryside in the form of hop and barley growing, the traditional art of beer brewing, and the craft of beer tapping. At all significant stages of history, Czech beer culture has been an important element of the meeting of people and the exchange of ideas, and thus fundamentally promotes mutual togetherness, the association added.
“We are proud that the culture associated with beer is becoming part of the Czech Republic’s intangible cultural heritage. The registration will now help us to further maintain, protect and develop this extremely unique culture,” said Slunecko.
Baxa and Agriculture Minister Marek Vyborny (KDU-CSL) also praised Czech beer culture as a national treasure and a cultural phenomenon.
Registration on the list of intangible heritage of the traditional folk culture of the Czech Republic is a precondition for a possible UNESCO listing.
Beer culture would thus join other Czech intangible assets on the UNESCO list, including the verbunk dance (listed in 2005), the Shrovetide processions (2010), falconry (2010), the Ride of the Kings (2011), puppetry (2016), the blueprint textile technique (2018) as well as the Czech blown-glass and beaded Christmas decorations manufacturing (2020), the old tradition of timber raft construction and river floating (2022), hand-made glass manufacturing (2023) and Zatec, west Bohemia, and the the surrounding hop-growing landscape that was UNESCO listed in 2023.
