There are these ideas of future WHS you have in your mind when you travel a bit. For instance, I would love a historic pub serial site in the UK and Ireland. Alas, I am only missing the proper locations to match to my idea. And obviously a say in the UK heritage committee and tentative list.

For Czechia, it always felt that a beer country, should have a beer related site. They like beer around here. My intuition would have pointed me towards Cesky Budejovice (Budweis) or Plzeň (Pilsen). Cesky Budejovice has a nice market square and is home to the original Budweiser brewery. Plzeň is where Pils was invented. But having been to Budweis, I didn't see it. The brewery is rather modern and I saw nothing to be nostalgic about. Not sure about Plzen, but I guess this falls in the same category... My hope was that the Czechs had scouted their land and found the perfect place for a beer WHS: Zatec? ... Unfortunately, no, they didn't.

Traveling between Karlsbad and Prague, I explored the town for a few hours. I can confirm the previous reviewers' comments that there is very little to see. There are some former breweries and store houses, but it doesn't amount to much and the state of preservation (see my picture) is rather poor. The hops museum allows you to explore one storehouse, nice but not stellar. The best part of my visit, the old town with a small hop garden, a new brewery and a synagogue, is no longer included which I found to be a pity. Recommended thing to do in town is to drink a local beer and then head off.

UPDATE: As pointed out by Matejicek, the bounderies were yet again revised. They seem to include old and new town. In addtion, hops fields were added. Probably, the most interesting component of the site.

One aside: Zatec is a site that I find a bit challenging on a historical note. Till 1945 and the Benes decrees Zatec was a majority German-speaking town called Saaz. The noble hops from Zatec is - to this day - called Saaz hops. Reading the Czech nomination you find zero reference to the expulsion of the German speaking population post WW2. It didn't happen in vacuum, I know, but it would have been worth a mention. The term that comes to mind is cultural appropriation, even if it's a term hard to associate with Germans after WW2.

OUV

Beer is produced since Ancient Egypt and the most popular alcoholic beverage to this day. But Zatec isn't it. Maybe, including the hops fields and turning this into a cultural landscape might help, but I have my doubts, starting with the question if there even is such a thing as a historic hops field. I also saw plenty of other fruits and vegetables grown on the fields around town. If this ever gets inscribed the final shape may change again, so I am not sure if I visited the right parts. I would counsel against making an effort to get here. Still, with the WHCs nowadays you never know what horse trading goes on. And following Matejicek's comment that the Czechs did as requested by ICOMOS it seems a probable inscription.

On a higher level, I think beer, unlike wine, faces the challenge of being an industrial product. A modern brewery is a beer plant operating with 21 century methods, while a vineyard may still look and operate the way it did 100 years ago. I am not sure what a beer WHS would actually look like and would be curious if someone has a great idea.

Getting There

Zatec has a train station on the outskirts of town. I came by train from Karlsbad and walked to the city center (20min). It also has a bus terminal connecting you directly to Prague (just google it). While the bus only takes you to the outskirts of Prague, you can connect via Line B to Prague Old town quite easily.

To get to the hops fields seems a bit strenuous. Best option is probably to take a cab.