Vatětice originally belonged to the castle Rabí, in the years 1530-1634 then to the farm Dlouhá Ves. Then it was sold by its owner Petr Čejka of Olbramovice. In the middle of the 17th century it belonged to Sidonie Lidmila, born Kavková of Říčany, who built a smaller fortress here. In the following years there was a very frequent change of owners, in 1680 Václav Rudolf, free master of Říčany bought Vatětice from Marie Maximiliána Kobilková of Schönwiesen. After him here in the first half of the 18th century sits Vilém Albrecht the free master of Žeberk or the knights of Pomal. Since 1751, Vatětice belonged to Antonie Cedlenková of Storchenfeld, born in Boryně of Lhota and subsequently to her heirs. The eldest daughter Marie Anna sold Vatětice in 1795 for 326,000 golds to the burgomaster kf Kašperské hory Augustin Müller, who founded here a glassworks and glass cutting shops. In 1803, the industrialist and entrepreneur Jakub Wimmer became another owner of the farm, including the ironworks, whose descendants farmed here until 1825, when Vatětice was bought by the Count Ferdinand Pálfy. He sold it three years later to the Count Antonín Pejačevič but he buy it back from him a year later. Finally, in 1832, Vatětice was bought by Emanuel Müller, son of Augustin Müller. The new owner named a part of the Vatětice dominion at Otava Annathal – today’s Annín – to honor his wife Anna, born Tauschek, owner of Poschinger’s Court in Zejbiš. The nobility administered three courts – Vatětice, Palvínov and Štěpánice, and owned a glassworks in Vatětice, originally called Wasserhütten, which employed twenty-four people around 1840, and two paper mills in Vatětice and Annín. At the beginning of the 20th century the estate was 613 hectares, still under the control of three courtyards, a 72 hl brewery managed by a brewer and a distillery set up in Vatětice in 1853. The estate was held by the Müller family until 1945, when it was confiscated under the Presidential Decree report and passed under the national administration.

Unfortunately, there is not much information about the brewery itself. It was alternately in own administration and in lease. In the middle of the 18th century it showed the yield of 120 golds, ie at 4 golds per barrel, the production of 30 barrels (75 hl). In 1852-1854 it was rented to a brewmaster Josef Petzl. In 1873 the brewery was already owned by the owner Václav Müller and one batch was 20 buckets, the annual yield was 600 buckets of beer. The owner of the manor, Václav Müller, is mentioned in some sources as a brewery brewer, which cannot be excluded, especially for smaller breweries under own administration. Indeed, a somewhat unconventional combination of the owner of the manor and the brewer’s brewery can be proven, for example, in a brewery in the nearby Loučová at Jan Šebesta. In the list of trades at the then District Office in Sušice is the name of the company: “Anna Müller, brewery Vatětice.” At the beginning of the 1990s the brewer Jan Písař was introduced in Vatětice. Antonín Písař succeeded him. The signature of Anton Písař as a brewer bears, for example, a document dated 17.8.1894. Annual beer yields at that time were around 200 hl. In 1898, we probably record the last brewery brewmaster, Peter Vaněk. His name and signature appear on several original archival documents from 1898, 1902 and 1904. Interestingly, however, the brewmaster Peter Vaněk is not mentioned in any brewing calendar from the beginning of the century. There we find exclusively the name of Václav Müller as the brewery owner in his own administration. In the brewing year 1901/02, 180 hectoliters of beer were produced at a batch of 12 hl. The brewery was canceled between 1906 and 1907. The last mention of it can be found in the brewery calendar from 1907, which shows the production of 220 hl of beer in the brewing period 1905/1906. In 1907, the administration of the farm in Pavínov (Palvínov) rented to Mr. Václav Ouřadova (Auřada), at that time the brewer and tenant of the brewery in nearby Kundratice, taproom and cellar belonging to the Vatětice brewery for 10 years from 1.3.1907 to 28.2.1917 against annual lease of 50 hl of good beer. Under the terms of this contract, the choice of the cupbearer had to be made exclusively with the consent of the nobility. That cupbearer was Karel Joachimsthaler. This information suggests that in 1907 the brewery was no longer in operation.

Published with kind permission of Mr. Tomáš Cihlář from the book Pošumavské pivovary.