U Fleků has been brewing on the same New Town plot since 1499, when a maltster named Vít Skřemenec started making beer in former monastic buildings, which makes it the one Prague brewhouse that has never stopped. For 177 years it brewed a single beer, Flekovský tmavý ležák, a dark thirteen-degree lager close to black in the glass; a pale one joined it in 2020. The building spread as it went — vaulted halls, painted rooms, a courtyard and a beer garden under chestnut trees seating several hundred — and the wrought-iron clock sign hanging over the street is how you find the door.
It is unapologetically a show. Waiters move between the benches replacing half-litres before they are empty and marking the tab, accordion music runs in one hall, and trays of herbal liqueur appear at tables that never ordered any. Locals will tell you it is a tourist trap and they are half right. It is also a preserved beer hall doing exactly what beer halls did: long communal benches, roast pork and dumplings, and one very good dark beer poured continuously.