The brewing of beer has ancient origins in Bohemia. It was first recorded not later than the period of early feudalism. The first brewers in Prague were recorded in 1082. The oldest brewing facility in Třeboň, owned by the Augustinian Monastic Canonry, was also recorded very early, in 1367. Another facility, "lord's boiling vessel" at the Třeboň castle serving the needs of the townsmen as well as the lordship, was mentioned in the late 70s and early 80s of the 14th century. The contemporary brewery traces its origin to this facility. The burgesses owned four malt houses within the town gates and six more outside them. The brewing of beer for sale was run by the town through corporations and individual burgesses who offered it in their own houses or supplied it to publicans in the surrounding villages within a mile (10 kilometres). Out-of-towners were, however, forbidden to produce malt or brew beer for sale. In 1505, Peter of Rosemberg (Petr z Rožmberka) gave the community of Třeboň the right to brew and sell white (wheat) beer forever, with the profits to be used for the buildings and needs of the town. The community then established a brewery in the Rathaus (city hall) building next to the manor (the house neighbouring the former inn "U Beránka" (The Lamb)). By the late 1550s, the community was brewing 116 gyles per annum of white beer in this Rathaus brewery. Each gyle amounted to 16 tubs, which is a total of 1,856 tubs (2,812.5 barrels or 4,602,800 litres) of beer a year.
These two breweries merged, apparently not earlier than 1566, after the erection of a new Renaissance town hall on the square. Its rear wing was formed by parts of the neighbouring Rathaus brewery (in the contemporary area of Beseda). Three or four breweries were working in the town at the time. Awnless wheat, sowed as winter wheat; and two-rowed and six-rowed barley, sowed as spring barley or winter barley, were used as raw materials for the production of malt. The remaining three quarters of the grain was purchased. Wild hops had grown in Bohemia since ancient times and this uncultivated variety was probably used in the beginning. The sowing of "hop flavouring" was first mentioned in the Rosemberg dominion in 1430. A lord's hopper of Třeboň was mentioned in 1522.
The equipment of the breweries was still very elementary at that time. Before the end of the first half of the 16th century, the manor brewery possessed a copper boiling vessel, a mixing kettle, and 16 gyles. Several additional casks, funnels, tankards, and shovels probably completed the entire stock of technological equipment. In order for the grain to germinate properly during malting, the humidity, temperature, and time had to be correctly established and controlled. The same careful measures also applied to the drying of the malt. The grain was steeped in the steeping vat and then spread on the floor to germinate. After germination, the malted grain was carried over to the malt kiln where it was dried carefully on wooden drying frames to avoid scorching. Hot wood smoke was used for drying. The dried malt was ground in the mill and carried to the brewery in sacks. The milled malt was first extracted with warm water in a mixing kettle or mash tub. The sweet extract, called malt wort, was separated from the insoluble spent malt by filtering it through wickerwork in the mash tub. The spent malt was used as cattle fodder. The malt wort was then cooked with hops in a copper boiling vessel heated with wood chips. "Kiln wood" was used for drying and "boiling wood" for boiling. This produced beer wort, which was moved to shallow tubs, called drains. When the beer wort had cooled it was put into other vats stored in vaulted fermentation cellars to fox. After the initial fermentation (the so-called "top fermentation" was typical for Bohemia), the beer was put into casks to stop the fermentation and allowed to froth up in lager cellars. The process of brewing beer was thus complete.
The original lord's brewery in the mansion, which brewed mostly white and sometimes also red beer for the needs of the lordship, was enlarged twice (by adding new cellars in 1482 and by modifications of the fermentation cellars, roofs, and other parts in 1522). It was still not able to cover all the demand of its assigned part of the existing dominion and to exclude beers from the town. Therefore in 1560, the ruling William of Rosemberg invited several Italian builders (Andrew Italian of Lomnice, Paul and Alexander dell Aqua, John Bernard of Volteline, and others) who built a new brewery in the lower castle within a short time. The lordship then took the privilege of brewing white beer away from the Třeboň burgesses so that they were allowed to offer only red and mixed beers. The lordship itself began to supply the subject villages, for the new lord's brewery was producing up to three gyles a week.
When the construction of the Rosemberg pond began in 1584, the town had to pass control of its brewery to the lordship in return for compensation because the lord's brewery could not supply such a large number of workers. William, the ruler, brewed only red and old beers in the public brewery, namely 30 gyles of beer, each containing 21 tubs, a year. The original term of 3 years was extended until 1592, when Peter Vok of Rosemberg returned the public brewery to the town. In 1618, Třeboň was burned down. The fire consumed the town hall and the brewery. In the same year, the community re-established the brewery and beer was brewed for the community as well as for individual burgesses.
When Peter Vok of Rosemberg returned the public brewery to the town of Třeboň in 1592, he ordered the repair of the very part of the secularised Augustinian Monastic Canonry that was out of order in the 16th century. The repair work included the acquisition of a new boiling vessel made by a boilermaker from Jindřichův Hradec. This small brewery then continually increased the production capacity of the lord's brewing industry until the beginning of the Thirty Year's War (note: series of European conflicts lasting from 1618 to 1648). Then the production of beer in Třeboň seems to have stopped for a while. It was restarted only late in 1628 when the emperor Ferdinand II confirmed that the privilege of brewing both wheat and barley beers was granted to the town as well as to the burgesses. The indebtedness of the town had grown because of the war damage and in the middle of the 17th century, the burgesses gave up their brewing privilege for the benefit of the community until the town's debts were paid. The community hired out the brewery starting in 1754. A fire that ravaged most of the town in 1781 did not spare even the newly enlarged town brewery. Production was soon restored, but the whole facility was considerably reduced. A "Reduta" hall (note: a hall for fancy-dress balls) was created from the burnt-out rooms over the fermentation room in 1797 and a permanent city theatre was built on the site of the burnt-out malt house in 1833. In 1799, the management of the brewery came into the hands of bourgeoisie who had the privilege of brewing. (They owned 97 burgher houses.) They hired it out for ever-increasing rent until 1811. In that year, the townsmen who had the privilege of brewing took the brewery into their own control and kept it for nearly half a century.
The brewery of the secularised Augustinian Monastic Canonry was out of order at the beginning of the Thirty Year's War. When this monastic institution was re-established in 1631 it was necessary to reconstitute its original economic basis. Therefore the provost Norbert Herrmann put the brewery into service in the middle of the 17th century. It brewed for the needs of the monastery, but primarily to supply the subject villages (9 entire villages and parts of 11 others) with beer. The canonry also tried to compete with the town brewery in the middle of the 17th century when it began to serve its beer in the so-called "parish house," in the row and in the suburbs. This was the cause of several legal disputes between the canonry and the burgesses. In 1688, a roomy new monastery malt house and a granary were built. The original canonry brewery burned down in 1723 and the abbot Adalbert Prechtl had a new brewery built in the part of the city bailey connected with the existing parts of his monastic institution. This happened between 1726 and 1730. A boilermaker named Hieber from Jindřichův Hradec made a new copper boiling vessel for the brewery in 1755. The canonry brewed its own beer from barley malt and was getting 20 casks (5,000 litres) out of a gyle. In the 18th century, its annual production capacity was 695 to 860 casks (1,769,400 litres to 2 189,500 litres). The canonry was disestablished in 1785 along with its brewery.
The Třeboň dominion, the general raw material base and the production of the lord's brewery suffered considerable damage during the Thirty Year's War. Clearly, even the lord's brewery could not flourish under such conditions. Apparently, it did not brew at all between 1613 and 1622. It returned to operation, brewing white, old, and mixed beers sometime in 1623, although after the despoliation only several large vats were left. In keeping with the overall condition of the dominion, the brewery appears to have had to contend with a constant shortage of raw materials as well as limited sales. The poor condition of the brewery forced the owner of the dominion to construct a new facility below the Svět (The World) pond dam and near Zlatá stoka (The Golden Gully). In the 1690s, the basement and a part of the main walls were built, but it became apparent that the remoteness of the building could later become an occasion for criminal machinations on the part of the staff, so the construction was stopped.
A new era for the lordship's brewing industry was marked by the construction of the modern lord's brewery on the site of the former Rosemberg armoury between the Svinenská and Novohradská gates. The task of designing a facility capable of producing and storing enough malt for 110 to 112 gyles for as long as 9 months and with a cellar capacity of 30 to 40 casks was assigned to the Italian architect Giacomo de Maggi. When Ferdinand, the Emperor of Schwarzenberg, accorded building permission on 9th April 1698, the above-mentioned Giacomo de Maggi and his son Giovanni began the construction. It was interrupted several times because of serious flaws, which were corrected by following the proposals of a Viennese architect named Martinelli and his Prague colleague Paul Ignatius Bayer who completed the facility for a total cost of 31,540 guilders and 39 kreutzers between 1706 and 1712. The building was further enlarged in later centuries until it reached its imposing contemporary size. Beer is now brewed here according to the traditional technology and only natural raw materials are used for its production.
Václav Rameš, PhDr., The Regional State Archives in Třeboň