This has been confirmed by a recent survey carried out by the Beer and Malt Association in some brewery groups and breweries in the Czech Republic at the beginning of August 2010. All inquired breweries said that one of the main reasons for investing so much money to increase beer sales in taverns is to preserve the tradition and to further develop the beer culture in our country. Beer is a huge social and cultural phenomenon with its own history. This is why Czech breweries are focusing now much more on educating the owners and employees of taverns and gastronomical facilities in beer, with the goal to further improve the handling of the traditional and most popular Czech beverage and to preserve the original properties of beer for retail consumers as much as possible. Czech breweries also pay a lot of attention to the aesthetics of the places where people drink beer. The selection of beer glasses is much bigger now, and Czech breweries pay for table cloths, parasols and often even equipment for watching sports, etc.
“Czech breweries see a tavern as a key place for creating a long-term relationship, i.e. loyalty, between them and customers. The relationship largely depends on the quality of the beer. The released surveys of the Public Opinion Research Center have confirmed again that quality wins over the power of advertising, at least in the case of beer. Czech breweries’ investments help to build up brand awareness, which in the end means that a potential customer, who goes to a tavern to drink beer in the company of his friends and hopefully buys more beer, decides about the return on investment that can be sometimes quite large,” said Ing. Jan Veselý, the executive director of the Czech Beer and Malt Association. “It has always held true that the maltster brews beer but the taverner makes it, and this is why investing money in training how to handle and sell beer is part of tradition and is nowadays emphasized much more than before. After all, it is good for both beer sellers and beer drinkers,” added Jan Veselý.
The said survey of the Czech Beer and Malt Association carried out among breweries has also confirmed that for this reason, the majority of them will keep organizing the ever popular competitions in the professional skills of their staff as well as apprentices and students. To understand beer and to handle and serve beer the right way and in a pleasant environment creates a competitive advantage of skilled and well-trained staff. Training in recognizing to whom beer can or cannot be served, which minimizes the negative impact of excessive beer drinking, is also part of the education.
Lately more and more breweries have been establishing their own restaurant chains, in addition to supporting the already existing gastronomical facilities. There are now 50 such restaurants in the CR. The largest Czech chain is Potrefená Husa founded by Staropramen. Budějovický Budvar, Plzeňský Prazdroj and other breweries also have their own chains.