The EBC headquarters is located in the Dutch city of Zoeterwoude, where the world's largest beer producer, Heineken, is based, producing up to 8 million hectoliters of beer. A total of 1,300 million hectoliters are produced in the world. This organization was founded in 1947, when many enterprises faced difficulties in financing their development and needed mutual assistance. Today, the EBC is a community of 22 national unions of beer producers. The main task of the EBC is to disseminate professional information among colleagues - technicians, technologists, researchers.
The President of the European Convention is presented with a symbolic staff - an impressive seal engraved with images of hops, barley, malt and brewer's yeast. The staff has been passed from president to president since 1958. Thousands of specialists from the European brewing industry attend the solemn ceremony.
The Czech Union of Beer and Malt Producers was admitted to the EBC in 1993 and was one of the first representatives of former socialist countries in this organization. As early as 1997, Jan Veselý was elected vice-president of the EBC. He sees his main goal in the presidential post as promoting beer culture in every possible way. Jan Veselý considers this ancient drink a symbol of a long-standing folk tradition that brings people joy and health. Doctors recommend two liters of beer a day for men and two glasses of 0.33 liters for women, at least that is what Jan Veselý thinks. The opinion of domestic doctors is likely to be somewhat different (editor's note). Moreover, the official web page of the Czech Union of Beer and Malt Producers gives a different figure - 0.5 liters of 12-percent beer a day for a man.
A few words about the new president. Jan Veselý is 55 years old. Every day of his begins at six in the morning. Then comes an hour of tennis. In winter, all weekends and holidays are devoted to skiing. Jan Veselý spends this time at his country house in the Krkonoše Mountains. It is no wonder that, despite all his love for beer and its systematic consumption, he completely lacks the so-called 'beer belly'.
After graduating from the Higher School of Economics, Jan Veselý worked at the Research Institute of Beer and Malt in Prague. Since 1993, he has been chairman of the Czech Union of Beer and Malt Producers and an employee of the brewing company Plzeňský Prazdroj. Currently, he is a manager of the Brewery House, known to tourists from many countries of the world, located in Prague on Ječná Street.
In addition to the international reputation of Czech beer, the nomination of a Czech representative for the EBC presidency was helped, in his opinion, by statistical data: beer consumption per capita in the Czech Republic has no equal. Czech figures especially jumped after the division of Czechoslovakia into two states. Czechs have traditionally drunk a lot of beer, while Slovaks prefer wine. So when beer consumption was divided by the population of the Czech Republic without Slovakia, it turned out to be 160 liters per year. And in Slovakia, half as much - 87 liters (9th place in the world). The closest to the Czechs are the Irish - 125 liters per year - and the Germans - 123 liters.
Jan Veselý has loved beer since his youth. He considers his first record to be 18 bottles of 'desítka', which he drank with a group of friends at a country house during his student years. Since that time, he says, this record has not been broken. He is ready to talk about beer tirelessly. His wife also loves beer, but does not drink a lot, although she consumes it daily. When asked which beer he likes most, the president diplomatically answers that every kind of beer is interesting in its own way.