Malý Rohozec, a small municipality only several kilometres north of Turnov, was originally a part of the Hrubý Rohozec estate. The most important owners of this estate in the past were, among others, the squires of Wartenberk, Jan of Michalovice the younger, Mikuláš of Wallenstein (Valdštejn) and Jan Tovačovský of Cimburk. In the 17th century Rohozec belonged to the famous Albrecht of Wallenstein, killed in Cheb during the Thirty-years war in 1634.
Malý Rohozec became an independent estate when it was donated to Marie Markéta, countess Černínová of Chudenice, by her father, count Des Fours, in 1650. With brief intermissions the Des Fours lineage owned the Malý Rohozec estate until 1832, when it was acquired by the Rohans. From them it passed on to Ferdinand Unger in 1836 for 30 thousand Zloty. Shortly after purchasing the estate, Ferdinand Unger started considering the idea of building a beer brewery there. Since there were several larger and smaller breweries brewing beer in the vicinity at the time, he did not manage to realise his intention until almost ten years later.
In 1850 Karel, son of the brewery’s founder Ferdinand Unger, inherited the brewery, along with the Malý Rohozec estate. He held on to it until 1906, when he passed it on to his son Karel, squire Unger.
In 1907 the inn-keepers of the Semily region started looking around for a brewery, the acquisition of which would grant them better terms for supplying their inns with the hops brew. Thanks to Alois Housa, a Semily innkeeper (and later the brewery stock-keeper), and Pavel Skrbek, an innkeeper from Bítouchov, a group was formed, which originally aimed all its efforts at building a new brewery. It was joined by their fellow innkeepers from Železný Brod and the movement decided on independence with the aim of fighting the beer-brewing cartel and high capital. When fellows from Vysoká and Jilemnice joined the campaign in 1908, a limited liability company was founded soon after, to be joined the same year by innkeepers from the Turnov region. All partners of the new company still contemplated the idea of a new brewery. With this in mind they began looking for a suitable location, which would have access to good quality water.
In May 1909 Karel Unger offered the Malý Rohozec brewery up for sale through his maltster Alois Holub. The innkeepers’ company decided as soon as July to buy the whole estate from Unger. That means not only the brewery, but also the adjoining farm. After the company was joined also by innkeepers from Mnichovo Hradiště and Česká Dubá, enough capital was amassed and the innkeepers bought the country estate from Karel Unger for 900.000 Crowns. The campaign spread to the Mladá Boleslav and Jičín regions as well and on April 19th, 1910, the deed of association could finally be signed, founding the company Public Innkeeper’s Brewery, Ltd. (Společenský pivovar hostinských, společnost s ručením obmezeným) in Malý Rohozec. Karel Unger also became one of the partners, keeping a full third of interest in it. The company was registered in the Business register on May 7th, 1910.
In the year 1913 the company changed its name to Innkeeper’s Public Brewery and Estate, Ltd. (Společenský pivovar a velkostatek hostinských, společnost s ručením obmezeným), Malý Rohozec u Turnova, which endured until 1924, when the brewery became a joint stock company. At this time, though, the brewery suffered problems due to wrong investments, which were definitely overcome only in 1927, when the company’s capital stock was raised.
In the year 1935 the Malý Rohozec Brewery’s turnout of 42.956 hectolitres of beer put it in 27th place among the 328 breweries in the republic, a few years before that it was even in the top twenty. Many companies, which then boasted a much larger volume of production, no longer exist today.
In 1948 the brewery in Malý Rohozec was nationalised and became part of the national corporation North-Bohemian Breweries (Severočeské pivovary). Afterwards it was independent for a short while, then later became a plant of the Trutnov Brewery, and after that a part of the East-Bohemian Breweries Hradec Králové (Východočeské pivovary Hradec Králové), on the basis of a strategy that was common at the time: breweries merged into large complexes, whose structure, in times unacquainted with competition and on the basis of an artificially created market space, often lacked logic. Being part of a large group under planned economy nonetheless influenced the growth of the Malý Rohozec Brewery’s turnout to 50 to 100 thousand hectolitres annually.
In 1994 the brewery was acquired in a public tender, put out by the National Property Fund, by Mr. and Mrs. Korbel. Yet the company’s decline continued under their ownership, and even though the beer was brewed without interruption, the management was highly unprofessional. The Korbels, together with the management of the company at the time burdened the brewery with many millions of debt, so the company found itself facing bankruptcy. In the year 2000 it was producing only a fifth of what it produced only five years before. On the basis of this and all preceding events the next year the brewery was definitely launched on the same road as many of its predecessors, who ended up in the abyss of history and oblivion. Yet in the past they collectively represented the national brewer’s pride and an elite of worldwide renown in the variety and quality of Czech beer, which unfortunately slowly waned due to the supranational companies (which are already controlling most of the Czech beer market), and also the incapacity of smaller and medium breweries to effectively react to the shock situation that has set in on the market and the following demagogisation of the nation with forcible advertising. The credit for the situation, which arose on the Czech beer market, goes mostly to our state establishment, already perfected in so many aspects, which could not protect our national treasure from the onset of foreign capital and also the inconsiderate and ill-judged sale of some small and medium breweries into the wrong hands.
The brewery did not experience a radical change until 2002, when the company Mivo Bohemia officially joined in. Some energetic steps were taken shortly before, but the recommencement of the brewery’s boom can be dated from year 2002. The new owner immediately started a process of increasing efficiency and widening of the commercial network, whose collapse in the previous years influenced the decrease of sales.
By its non-standard practices and a wholly different policy than that applied by large breweries and their national owners, the company has contributed to the brewery’s uncommonly aggressive market launch and the reputation of the good, strong and true Czech beer spread quickly in the region (and outside it as well). In the present day you will already find many select stores and restaurants, where the customer and connoisseur of fine beer can buy various kinds of beer from Malý Rohozec and subsequently savour it.
The Brewery Malý Rohozec brews beer according to the original formula, from raw materials bought exclusively from Czech malt and hops producers. The water for the production of Malý Rohozec beer comes from our own springs in the Vazovecké valley.