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In the early 1900s, the Czech economy and our three breweries enjoyed
relative growth and the mood in society seemed to be optimistic.
All three breweries took advantage of this. Their production volumes increased,
the breweries began to expand, and that brought about the need for equipment
upgrades. Development was boosted by two important events that occurred
in the last years of the 19th century: the advent of refrigeration and
the invention of mass bottling technology.
Staropramen Brewery purchased additional land needed to expand production.
Braník brewery underwent reconstruction and in Ostravar, a new industrial
rail spur was built, among other things. The breweries enjoyed a successful
period.
However, in this same period competition began to intensify among breweries,
especially in Prague, where several large breweries were operating, e.g.
Měšťanský pivovar in Královské Vinohrady and První měšťanský
pivovar, as well as a number of smaller breweries.
As a result of the competitive struggle, Staropramen was first registered
as a trademark in 1911 and the Staropramen Brewery also registered sixteen
additional trademarks. Among them were names such as Pračep, Starosmíchovský,
and Starozdroj. After a few years, though, only one of the trademarks
registered at that time was appearing on bottle labels - Staropramen.
An interesting piece of period trivia: the author of the first artistic
design of the Braník mark (logo) was the famous Czech painter Mikoláš
Aleš. His design was based on the maltsters' mark used at that time, which
was granted to the profession by King Charles IV, with the addition of
St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of maltsters, to the original coat-of-arms.
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