The Bowsing Ken

642: Hoegaarden Wit - Blanche

   A few years back I went for an early afternoon stroll on a sunny and hot Sunday afternoon in a town just outside of Brussels, Belgium. Since I had to work later on in the evening, having a beer or two was not on the agenda. As I walked past street cafe after street cafe, I saw the locals enjoying cold beer, most of them, it was quite apparent, were cloudy wheat beers. Now I love Belgian wheat beers, and passing this scene, with chilled glasses of cold beer just dripping with condensation, and not being able to partake, well it just about killed me. Certainly one of the most widely enjoyed wheat beers, both in Belgium and over here, is Hoegaarden (yea, I know, another AB Inbev product, but hey, it's still good beer).

  Hoegaarden is actually the name of a town - population 6,647 in 2011 - in the province of Flemish Brabant, some 20 kilometers southeast of Leuven. Although evidence exists indicating habitation in the area for many year priors, the current village dates from the late 900s, and historic records mention the existence of a brewery as far back as 1318. Due to a lopsided tax code instituted by the Duke of Brabant, which heavily taxed beers made in other towns, while sparing the breweries in Hoegaarden, brewers flocked to the town. In 1726, the town had 2,000 citizens, 110 malt houses, and 36 breweries. Wheat beers - bière blanche or witbier - brewed with recipes originated from the local monks back in at least 1445, and taking advantage of locally grown wheat, were the main product.

  In the 20th Century, the growing popularity of lagers signaled a slow decline in Hoegaarden's market, and the last brewery closed its doors in 1957. Not wanting to see the tradition of locally made wheat beer die, a local milkman named Pierre Celis opened his own brewery in 1966, and produced what he called Hoegaarden Wit. Celis made his first batch in his milk house, before soon moving into one of the unused old breweries - De Kluis (The Vault or The Cloister or the Hermitage). This brewery burned down in 1985, but was resurrected with backing from what was then called the Artois Group. And, therein lies the eventually incorporation into AB InBev.

   Hoegaarden Wit is made with non-malted wheat and malted barley; a combination that the old monks knew would produce a rather sour beer. So they began to experiment with various spices as well as orange peel and coriander imported from the Dutch colony of Curaçao (historically, this area of Belgium has, on again/off again, been part of The Netherlands). The Hoegaarden you enjoy today can trace its evolution back to these monks.

   A few helpful hints: Drink Hoegaarden cold. Used a chilled glass (they recommend putting it in the freezer for a while), and if you don't have the proper glass, a jam jar will do just fine. Legend has it that a jam jar may or may have not been the prototype for the current Hoegaarden glass. Pour about 3/4 of the bottle, and then swirl the bottle around to mix up the yeast that has settled - Hoegaarden in not a filtered beer and has had a secondary fermentation in the bottle - so you get all the flavor. Enjoy - I always do!