Thrills and Pils for Loiner in the east

Yorkshire property developer Robert Neale has helped create a new beer experience celebrating the origins of lager in his adopted city of Prague. Chris Burn flew out to meet him. Pictures by James Hardisty.

SINCE moving to Prague in the early 1990s, shortly after the Velvet Revolution had brought about the collapse of communism there, Robert Neale has been involved in an array of commercial developments in what is now the Czech Republic – from one of its first shopping centres to supermarkets, industrial estates and office buildings.

But the Leeds-born property developer, who grew up in Garforth and attended Pocklington School, has now embarked on a very different type of project – opening a beer experience aimed at emulating Dublin’s Guinness Storehouse and the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam.

Neale and his business partners have just opened Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience, which tells the story of how the Czech drink became the foundation of most modern-day lager through interactive displays, a talking hologram and the chance to pour – and taste – a few rounds yourself.

Neale, who founded commercial real estate company Portland Trust in the late 1990s which subsequently agreed a long-term joint venture with US fund management giant

ARES Management Corporation, invited The Yorkshire Post out to Prague to visit him at the newly-opened experience.

His time in the country began in 1991 after being offered a job by a Scottish property firm called Ryden which was setting up a new office in Prague.

It was early in his career after stints in London and Prague. Neale says he didn’t anticipate he would end up staying and building his career and life in the city.

“The Velvet Revolution was about two years before I came over. Prague is an incredibly beautiful city but many of the buildings were in a bad state of repair. They’d had 40 years of communism.

“My father thought I was very brave coming out here but I thought I would give it a year and see what it was like.

“But it has always been a fantastic place to live and work and I was very lucky to have been picked for Prague.”

SUPPING-UP TIME: Right, Portland Trust managing director Robert Neale doing a test taste at Pilsner Urquell: The Original Beer Experience; above, Lucie Doubravova, one of the bar staff.