A chance in a lifetime to be brewer for a day at the famous Budweiser Budvar brewery
was the top lot in the auction of breweriana held at the Great British Beer Festival yesterday (Thursday August 7th). The brewer-for-a-day slot is a regular one at this annual event but this year it broke all records achieving £1,250 after some intense bidding.
The successful bid was from former CAMRA chief Ian Dobson.
Dobson is no stranger to the Budweiser Budvar brewery. Immediately after the Velvet Revolution when the brewery was in serious danger of being privatised and snapped up by Anheuser Busch it was he and Roger Protz who rallied the CAMRA faithful to help oppose the American project and the duo held press conferences in Prague, condemning the proposal as well as communicating CAMRA’s concerns directly with President Havel and the then Czechoslovak Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus.
His first visits to the brewery were during the Communist period however. “My only interest then was to sample at source a very fine beer” he recalls. “Thanks to those early visits I realised when the Americans threatened the beer what a treasure the world’s beer drinkers would be losing if AB got their way and I knew we simply had to act”
Dobson’s vigorous campaigning for British beer drinkers won him an MBE. He says he is naturally very proud of receiving a medal from the Queen but the idea of being the head brewer of Budweiser Budvar for a day puts everything else in the shade for him, describing it as “both a trip down memory lane and the realisation of a life-long ambition to be at the helm of one of Europe’s most iconic breweries – if only for a few hours”.
The date of his take-over is yet to be fixed. That will be, we understand, when he feels the right moment has arrived to inform his long term partner Jill Bennell of his successful bid.
Budvar’s brew master, Josef Tolar, who was present at the GBBF both as a judge for the Champion Beer of Britain and for the brewer for a day auction said he was delighted that out of all the possible brewers-for-a-day in the UK it was Ian Dobson who made the winning bid.. “I am looking forward to him taking the helm for a day and to reminiscing with him over shared memories of an exciting 20 years” Tolar commented.
(ends).
