Budweiser Cold & Crisp Pint Glass

Product Information

Behind brewing, the art of glassmaking is perhaps the Czech Republic’s most famous export. Both enjoy a rich history and tradition here; both have been perfected over centuries and involve skills passed down through generations. While Czech glass-blowing is known through the work of artists like Martin, it is the production of Czech ‘crystal’ and highly decorative cut-glass for which the country is truly renowned around the globe.

For those not in the know, Lada was a modernist Czech artist of the early twentieth century and a favourite of Pablo Picasso. Lada’s subversive, caricature-style bar scenes captured the interior and decoration of the Czech pub at the time perfectly. “The forms and details in pictures of Josef Lada still feel very modern,” Rony continues. “But they have this obvious historical element too. In his pictures I could see the details of Czech beer glasses as they were a hundred years ago and I designed this shape for Budvar using this as inspiration.” I head across Prague to the new studio of Rony Plesl, artist, sculptor, designer, and one of the world’s foremost names in the art of glass. Inside its great front doors, Rony’s beautiful and newly remodeled space is buzzing with artists, collectors and luminaries, all gathered to celebrate the studio’s opening. Positioned around me, his work speaks for itself. I wander between geometric installation pieces resembling great cut and coloured crystals, and down dazzlingly beautiful rows of intricately cut vases, bowls and glasses. In one corner are what look like branches chopped from trees, except these are stunning, neon-coloured pieces glowing an otherworldly green; part of his recent exhibition at the V&A in London. We’re in a studio in downtown Prague, a vast vaulted space housed inside an old cloister, in front of the white-hot roar of an open glass furnace. Martin is one of the world’s most celebrated glass blowers; an artist who is both keeping this traditional art-form alive and propelling it forwards in to the future with his mixture of classic and modern pieces.This is the reason we’re here: a look at the brand-new Budweiser Budvar glass. A work of art if ever there was one, and the first glassware to be introduced to bars and pubs across the world by the iconic South Bohemian brewery in years. For hundreds of years, the kingdom of Bohemia was the seat of Emperors, royalty and the nobility. During the Renaissance, it was discovered that the countryside’s raw materials yielded glass finer and more stable than that found around Venice, Italy – the big rival glassmaking region of the time. In the seventeenth century, Caspar Lehmann, gem cutter to Emperor Rudolf II, developed a method of engraving this Czech glass with copper and bronze wheels, birthing the decorative cut glass style that remains prized all over the world.

Wide, weighty, pleasingly tailored to fit the hand and with a rounded and fluted cut-glass detail to its lower half – as soon as it’s in your hands, you start to appreciate the time, detail and craft that has gone into its creation. It’s truly a thing to behold, and every bit worthy of holding the slow-matured and traditionally brewed lager that it’s been designed for: a beer that has only ever been made in the same place, in the same way, with the same four quality ingredients, for over 125 years. I take a long drink and it’s incredible. And I get it. I understand. Together, this glass and this beer work in synchronicity, bringing the ingredients of Budvar’s long brewing process to life and perfectly amplifying those characteristics that make this beer so special: the touch of hops in the aromatic foam and the fresh crispness balanced with that rich, malt lager body. As the official sponsor of the FIFA Women’s World Cup ™ and the England Football teams, Budweiser – a proud part of Budweiser Brewing Group – is launching its biggest ever Off-Trade campaign in the UK, with a whole host of tailored mechanics across the grocery and convenience channels. Glass is a magic material.” Rony explains when I catch up with him. “It doesn’t have a fixed crystal structure. It is still in motion.” This is part of his forty-year fascination with it, and explains the sheer range in his work. For as well as an international reputation as an artist of monumental sculptures, Rony’s glassware and product design is equally visionary and award-winning. It meant he was the perfect partner to entrust with creating the new Budvar glass.

Since leaning his skills from his father, he has spent the best part of three decades perfecting his craft and exhibiting across the world. These days he specialises in sculptural and figurative work, but his studio houses a collection of pieces from across his career: a shelf of bespoke wine glasses here; a Day of the Dead glass skeleton there.