As soon as I found out that a beer spa was a real thing I knew I had to experience it. Combining two of my favourite things could only result in general epicness, besides, where else in the world can you bathe in beer and call it a spa treatment? Well, actually it turns out a few places including Germany and Austria, but it originated in Chodová Planá at the family run Chodovar Brewery and so we set off to experience the original "Beer Wellness Land" and that's got to count for something, right?Of course it only makes sense that the country that consumes more beer per capita than any other country in the world, would invent the beer spa where you are first submerged in a combination of 'dark bathing beer', mineral water, crushed herbs, hops and active beer yeast for 20 minutes before being taken in to a separate room to be swaddled. Legit. They swaddle you like an oversized infant. And it's amazing.
Chodovar Brewery is situated close to the German border about 2 hours outside of Prague or an hour outside of Karlovy Vary, which is where we left from. If you do go, print directions first because the signs are ambiguous at best, we literally saw a billboard for the spa that cryptically described it as being 'only 9km from here' on both sides, giving you a 9km radius of the billboard to choose from and sending us 9km in the wrong direction rendering us late for our original appointment and forced to reschedule for the following morning. Thankfully the trip wasn't totally fruitless because aside from housing the first beer spa in the world they also have an impressive cave restaurant 'Ve Skále' (which literally translates to 'in the rock') built in 800 year-old granite cellars, where we were able to pass a couple hours dining on delicious Czech food and drinking their equally delectable beers. The remainder of the afternoon was spent exploring the spa town Mariánské Lázně (10 minutes from Chodová Planá) with it's beautiful colonnades, singing fountain and enjoying beers in the park before heading back to Karlovy Vary for a BBQ with friends.
Thankfully we arrived on time the following morning and found ourselves being directed down a staircase to a set of cellars, where we were told to ring a bell outside a heavy wooden door and wait to be granted permission to enter. I honestly wouldn't have been shocked had the door opened to reveal an elderly cloaked man holding a torch in a dimly lit corridor, and was a bit disappointed when the door opened to reveal a very normal man in very normal spa technician clothes, the only thing that differed from a normal spa was that the scents of jasmine and lavender had been replaced with that of 'a freshly brewed dark beer'. He quickly handed us towels that were more along the line of tablecloths then towels and directed us to a changeroom where we were to shed our clothes and return donning tablecloth-togas. 
From there the woman we referred to as our 'beer mum' took over, guiding us to our separate baths in a communal room where she then individually removed our towels and lent us a hand to climb in to the rather slippery tubs before then returning with cold glasses of beers for us. I suppose the beers are to ensure we didn't try drinking the bath water, which of course we did purely out of curiousity and frankly it tasted a bit metallic (likely due to the unsavoury mineral water and metal bathtubs). It was somewhat surreal to be in an old stone cellar with 3 of my friends sitting around in our own individual baths sipping beers while submerged in unfermented beer. I think we more or less giggled the entire time we were there. After 20 minutes our beer mum returned, urging us to finish our beers and helping us one at a time out of the baths and back in to our towels. She then left us to replenish our glasses while our 'beer dad' took us in to a dimly lit room lined with loungers that we were instructed to lay face up on (which as I am writing this realize how dodgy that sounds, but I assure you there was nothing sinister about this room), from there he went to us one by one swaddling us in large fleece blankets and asking us if we were comfortable, we half expected him to lean in to kiss our foreheads and then read us Goodnight Moon, which would have been a nice touch.
For the next 20 minutes we alternated between short naps and sneaking out of bed to take pictures of us rolled up like a bunch of sausage rolls. When our 20 minutes were up our beer dad came back to unswaddle us which wasn't really necessary since we had made such a disaster of the blankets with our beer drinking and photo taking. We were instructed back in to the changeroom to re-dress and emerged feeling rejuvenated and healthy and softer plus I felt substantially less hungover after the process, which seems counterintuitive since the entire experience revolved around alcohol but hair of the dog I suppose.All in all I highly recommend czeching it out and when you're finished hitting up the cave restaurant for a hearty meal. And since the treatment (including your beers) only comes out to 660Kc ($33US) you'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason why not to.
