Jiří Boček joined the Hall of Fame of Czech Brewing and Malting and Jan Šavel received the F.O. Poupě Award

Yesterday the Czech Brewing and Malting Association presented significant awards to two men, whose entire professional life was connected with Budweiser Budvar Brewery. For his lifetime contribution to the industry, Jiří Boček, the former managing director of the corporation, joined the Hall of Fame of Czech Brewing and Malting. For co-authoring the "Malting" university textbook, Jan Šavel received the F.O. Poupě Award.

The Czech Brewing and Malting Association presented its highest awards for the year 2017 last night. The awards were also received by two men, whose entire professional life was connected with Budweiser Budvar Brewery.

Jiří Boček, who worked for the brewery from 1983, holding the position of the managing director in 1991-2016, joined the Hall of Fame of Czech Brewing and Malting for his lifetime contribution to the industry. Under his management, the brewery increased its volume produced from 491,000 hectolitres onto 1.6 million hectolitres, while the number of export countries rose from 18 onto 77. “As far as I am concerned, entering the Hall of Fame is the highest award from brewers for my lifelong and rich professional career in brewing and I really appreciate it,” says Budweiser Budvar’s former managing director Jiří Boček.

Jan Šavel received the F.O. Poupě Award for co-authoring the "Malting" university textbook. Mr. Šavel wrote four chapters of the textbook, and co-authored another one. He has recently celebrated his 50th work anniversary in Budweiser Budvar and he still actively works in the brewery laboratory on testing the quality of ingredients and brewer's yeast, and also concentrates in the issue of beer aging. “Simply, I'm still enjoying myself at the lab,” says Budweiser Budvar’s scientific researcher Jan Šavel.

“Congratulations to both men. Receiving these professional awards constitutes a great honour for the whole brewery as well. At the same time, it represents a huge commitment for the future - we want to build on their work with dignity,” concludes Petr Dvořák, director Budweiser Budvar’s managing director.

Jiří Boček, MSc. – a brief C.V.
Born in 1957 in the town of České Budějovice as the son of Karel Boček, who himself worked in Budweiser Budvar in 1946-1982 in the positions of junior brewing master, Production and Technical Director and eventually Budvar Brewery’s director in 1968-1973. Jiří Boček attended a vocational school in České Budějovice - study field of ‘Maltster’, in 1972-73. Subsequently, he studied the Secondary School of Food Technology in Prague in 1973-1977. In 1982 he graduated from the University of Chemical Technology, Department of Fermentation Chemistry and Bioengineering. In 1983, he joined Budweiser Budvar Brewery as a technologist and the brewing house foreman with the task of ensuring a faultless start of new brewing systems in the brewery. From 1985 to 1991 he worked as a junior brewing master. From 1991 until 2016 he was the corporation’s managing director. After 1989, Mr. Boček significantly affected the development of the brewery. In 1993 - 1995 he participated in designing and implementing the construction of CCT I and CCT II and collaborated on designing the horizontal lager tanks I and II. He authored the idea of a project to establish trading centres of the brewery in the Czech Republic and to set up subsidiaries of the brewery abroad (Germany, Great Britain and Slovakia). He considerably interfered in the management strategy of the trademark disputes between Budweiser Budvar and Anheuser-Busch, having managed to extend the intellectual property of the brewery and export activities from 18 to 77 states. He helped to push through the Protected Geographical Indication for ‘Budějovické pivo’ and ‘Českobudějovické pivo’ in the access agreement between the Czech Republic and the EU in 2004. The Czech and Moravian Brewing Academy awarded him the Annual prize for 2015 in the category of “Breweries with production above 500,000 hectolitres.” On Friday, 28th October 2016, he received a Medal of Merit in the Economic Area from the hands of Czech President Miloš Zeman. In 2016 he also received the “Czech Beer Patriot” Award from Pivo, Bier & Ale magazine. Furthermore, he also received a third-degree commemorative medal of the Czechoslovak legionary community from the war veterans last year - a community, which he supported for ten years.

Assoc. Prof. Jan Šavel, CSc. – brief C.V.
He was born in České Budějovice in 1944. He began working in Budweiser Budvar’s laboratory directly after his graduation from the University of Chemistry and Technology in 1967. Gradually he held the position of the corporate laboratory head, the quality management department manager (1972), and later he became the head of an independent research centre (1978). Brewing microbiology is his original specialization. He summarized his knowledge and extensive practical experience in the book “Microbiological Quality in Breweries”. Control methods and designing new control methods and instruments constituted another area of his professional interest. He habilitated in 1996 with his dissertation “The Modernization of Brewery Production Control”. He was professionally active in a number of Czech and international institutions - for example, he was a member of the Brewery Science Group at the European Brewery Convention. He taught at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. Furthermore, he was a member of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Food and Biochemical Technology of the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and the editorial board of the “Fermentation Industry” magazine. Jan Šavel published more than 200 articles both at home and abroad. He is the author and co-author of about thirty patents. For instance, his project of original soil for the demonstration of foreign yeast and lactic bacteria meant an extension of microbiological control methods. In 2004 he joined the Hall of Fame of Czech Brewing and Malting. In 2010 he received the F.O. Poupě Award for co-authoring the university textbook “Brewing” from the Czech Brewing and Malting Association. He is also the holder of the Czech and Moravian Brewing Academy Annual Award for 2016.