In the Dešenice castle, a museum of Šumava beer will be established for 24 million CZK

Dešenice (Klatovy Region) - A museum of Šumava brewing will be established for 24 million crowns by May 2015 in the renovated fortress in Dešenice. There is nothing similar in the Klatovy region, apart from a small exhibit in the Klatovy museum. The town with 720 residents has received 20 million CZK from the European program ROP Southwest for this future tourist attraction. In the next election period, they plan to build a microbrewery for eight to ten million crowns. This was stated by Mayor Jan Rejfek.
    "Construction of the museum will start on October 1, we will open it on May 31, 2015," he said. There will be exhibits and projections about the history and present of beer brewing in the town, in Šumava, and also in the Czech Republic, where there are currently about 250 microbreweries. Dark Dešenický kozel eleven was produced there, and according to the mayor, the brewery was one of the largest in Klatovy District during the First Republic. The museum will create the basic conditions for the revival of beer production in Dešenice, which ended in 1930.
    According to Rejfek, it would be a brewery owned and operated by the town with an annual output of up to 3000 hectoliters, "It would supply restaurants and possibly guesthouses in the nearby area. It will not expand further," he said.
    The museum will be located above the cellars of the fortress, where the offices of the former estate were located, which utilized the fortress until 1990. The town aims to negotiate the loan of exhibits with the Regional Museum in Klatovy.
    Dešenice already completed the renovation of half of the fortress in 2012 for 32 million CZK. With the support of ROP, 15 rooms for associations, offices, weddings, and exhibitions were created there, and seniors also study there. The community hosts five fire brigades, hunters, a women's club, and the Red Cross.
    After the construction of the museum, two-thirds of the fortress will be renovated. The historic granary will need to be converted into a brewery. So far, there are microbreweries in Železná Ruda, in Chudenice, and one is being prepared in Bezděkov and Sušice.
    "We want to attract people here. There is no industry here. The only thing that can be built on is that the fortress will be repaired and there will be an expectation that people will come," Rejfek stated. So far, it is only appealing to the nearby Nýrsko reservoir and a large number of cycling trails connected to Germany.
    The fortress, of which the first mentions date back to 1272, was returned to the town in 1996, but it did not have money for repairs for a long time. Dešenice, which also owns two churches, invests two to three million crowns annually into monuments thanks to large forests that bring money into the treasury.