Kozel Brewery Tour from Prague: The Complete Guide to Velké Popovice

There are day trips from Prague that take you to castles, cathedrals and medieval towns. And then there is Velké Popovice.

A Kozel Brewery tour from Prague takes you 25 kilometres southeast of the city, to the small village of Velké Popovice, where Velkopopovický Kozel — one of the most recognised Czech beers in the world — has been brewed continuously since 15 December 1874. It is a completely different kind of day trip. And for many visitors, one of the most enjoyable.

The story of Kozel

The brewery in Velké Popovice was founded by František Ringhoffer — a Prague industrialist, mayor of Smíchov and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his era. The first batch of Kozel was a dark beer, brewed in a 60-hectolitre cauldron on 15 December 1874. Within a year the brewery was producing 18,000 hectolitres annually. Within a few years it had become the third largest brewery in the Czech Republic.

The name Kozel means "billy goat" in Czech — and the goat became the brewery's emblem thanks to one of the better stories in the history of Czech beer. A French painter, passing through the Bohemian countryside in the early 20th century, was taken in and fed by the people of Velké Popovice. Out of gratitude, he painted them a goat. The emblem first appeared on the label in 1922 and has been there ever since.

Today Velkopopovický Kozel is part of the Plzeňský Prazdroj group and owned by Asahi Breweries, exporting to dozens of countries around the world. But the beer is still brewed in Velké Popovice, according to the same traditional recipe, using water from the same local wells that have supplied the brewery for over 150 years.

The live goat

Every brewery has a logo. Kozel has Olda.

In the 1930s, the owners brought a live goat to the brewery as an attraction. The tradition has continued ever since. Since the 1970s, every brewery goat has been named Olda — in honour of Oldřich Lenc, the brewery worker who cared for the original goat. Each successive goat has carried the name — Olda XV is the current resident of the brewery park.

Meeting Olda is, for most visitors, an unexpectedly delightful part of the tour.

What the Kozel Brewery tour includes

The guided tour takes you through the active brewhouse, where you will learn about the brewing process and the raw materials behind Kozel's distinctive taste. You will walk through the historic brewhouse from 1928 — still standing on the brewery grounds — and see the lager cellars, where the beer ferments and matures for weeks before it reaches the tap.

The highlight is the tasting at the end: unfiltered Velkopopovický Kozel beer served straight from a unique tap in the cellars. Light or dark — your choice. Unfiltered, unpasteurised, at the precise temperature it should be drunk. There is nothing quite like it.