Czech bishop blesses Pilsner beer for Vatican

Plzen Bishop Frantisek Radkovsky blessed the Czech Pilsner Urquell beer specially brewed Friday for Easter holidays in the Vatican.

The beer will be offered in the Giovanni Paolo II church restaurant in Rome, Vladimir Jurina from the Pilsner brewery said.

Radkovsky said he hoped his blessing would help the beer be as successful as the blessing of the first Pilsner Urquell beer brewed in 1842.

The first blessed beer was served on November 11, 1842.

Jurina said the pope received the Pilsner beer as a gift last December when representatives of the Plzen town hall presented Plzen as the 2015 European Capital of Culture in the Vatican.

The beer will be sent to the restaurant operated by the Vatican on April 20.

It is not yet known how much beer will be sent. 

This will be discussed with Pavel Vosalik, Czech ambassador to the Vatican, shortly before Easter.

This special Easter beer will be symbolically maturing for nearly the whole 40-day Christian fasting period, beginning with Ash Wednesday.

"We would like to hand the beer also directly to Vatican church dignitaries as our Easter present," brewer Vaclav Berka said.

Samples of the blessed Easter beer will be kept in the Brewery Museum in Plzen.

The blessing of beer is relatively rare. 

There is a traditional form of the blessing because old monasteries had their own breweries.

The purpose of the blessing is not the beer itself but the person whom the beer should benefit.

Radkovsky said pope John Paul II heard of Plzen thanks to its good beer. 

He recalled that Pope Benedict XVI comes from Bavaria, which is well known for beer production.

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