Vyšší Brod Monastery

This guide to Vyssi Brod Monastery near Cesky Krumlov follows an unlikely thread through Cistercian discipline: since at least 1380, monks vowed to prayer and silence also ran a working brewery, keeping one recipe for travelers and the refectory and a finer batch reserved only for the abbot. You'll meet the monastery's own brewer, remembered only as Mikulas, and hear a rival parish pastor's jealous complaint about how freely the beer flowed here.