Ferrous Wheel said:
I was having some Hoegarten Hefes last night meself. Delightful warm-weather brew.
Keith
Hoegaarden is grand stuff.
(Beer-geekness follows)
But the term "hefe", should probably not be applied to it, as that usually refers to unfiltered Bavarian wheat beers, which are quite different. Hoegaardin is a style usually called white ale, witbier, witte, wit, biere blanch, or sometimes tarwebier, and is almost always unfiltered, with a secondary fermentation in the bottle. Unlike its Bavarian relative, the wheat used for brewing is raw, or unmalted, and the beer is often flavored with spices (typically including corander and dried orange peel)--such additives would be forbidden in Germany.
A couple of OK discussions of wheat-beers here:
http://www.sallys-place.com/beverages/beer/wheat_beer.htm
http://www.epicurious.com/d_drinking/d04_wheatbeer/wheatbeer.html
This old style of wheat beer has an interesting recent history, and if it weren't for the efforts of one man named Pierre Celis, you probably couldn't find any to drink, anywhere. He re-opened a closed brewery in Hoegaarden in the 60's, and that was the start of a new life for an essentially extinct style.
http://www.globalbeer.com/web/body_pages/pages-beer/ErtveldsWit/ErtveldsWit.html
Ertvelds Wit
Brouwerij Van Steenberge
Flanders
True authentic Belgian WIT beer
refermented in the bottle & keg:
living beer
5% Alc. by Vol.
The recreation of the original Hoegaarden Wit.
Mr. Pierre Celis is generally acknowledged to have revived the old Belgian Wheat beer style, when he recreated the original Hoegaarden beer in the early 1960s. He made this beer style a success in Belgium in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, he sold his brand to the mega-brewer Interbrew-Labatt, and many believe that the Hoegaarden changed in taste and aroma from that point on. Which is understandable.
With the money, Pierre emigrated to Austin-Texas and started brewing the same beer again in a brand new brewery he built, but, since he had sold the brand-name, he had to find another name and thus he named the beer : CELIS-WHITE. A few years in operation, and the emerging of a new success-story, the mega-brewer Miller bought the Celis brewery and the Celis White brand-name at the height of the microbrew-hype in 1996. Amazingly, the only thing they did with the brewery was down-grading it, taking the Celis White brand of almost all the markets, and eventually closing the brewery in 2000. This Miller adventure was such a disappointing experience for Mr. Celis that he had already moved back to Belgium.
Fast forward to late 2002, when Miller sold the brewery equipment of the closed Celis brewery to a small brewer in Michigan, who also bought the Celis White brand from Miller.
Back in Europe, Pierre Celis, started to brew his beloved beer again under contract by the De Smedt brewery, and sold it under the brand-name CELIS WHITE all over Europe. He had retained the rights to that brand-name in Europe. But not more than a year later this brewery was bought by the mega-brewer Heineken, and Mr. Celis was again without a brewery. Then he found the Van Steenberge brewery who bought the brand-name Celis White from Mr. Celis plus the whole brew-recipe. Together with the brew-crew of the Van Steenberge brewery, Pierre Celis re-invented again his original white beer and hopefully so for the last time, allowing Mr. Celis finally to live knowing that his original beer is still alive! Celis White is sold all over Europe.
This same beer is now bottled under the brand-name Ertvelds Wit to be sold in the USA, since the rights to the Celis White brand-name for the USA are in the hands of the Michigan brewery. So far this beer, the Ertvelds Wit, the original Hoegaarden recreated by Mr. Pierre Celis, is only available through the www.beveragebistro.com web site, and on draft in a few selected bars in the USA. Ertvelde is the village where the Van Steenberge brewery is located.
A fair number of beers brewed in similar style are available, depending, of course upon the "sophistication" of the local beer market. You might also like Wieckse Witte (Holland), or Blance de Honells, or Blanch de Chambly (Quebec), though some of these do not have the added spices. Alagash (Maine) is said to make a good version, which I've not tried. Avoid the cloying "Blue Moon" stuff, which is a "stealth megabrew" from Coors, if other options are available. I'm sure that many other microbreweries and brewpubs are trying/claiming to produce the style, but with few exceptions I find that so far though there are some notable exceptions, most American brewers attempts to brew any sort of wheat beer turn out rather insipid, perhaps because they choose to tailor such light colored beers beers to appeal those that don't like beer with assertive flavor. Can't neglect the large "Bud" market. It's embarrasing and unthinkable to put a Bud-lite tap in your brew pub.
Michigan Brewing Company, which purchased the equipment from Miller and moved the lot to Michigan, is said to now be producing a fine product with consultation from Mr. Celis, but so far distribution is very limited.
http://www.michiganbrewing.com/mbc.asp
Somebody called Brick is producing Celis White in Canada, apparently having purchsed brand from Miller. Dunno how that is said to compare.
http://www.bartowel.com/brick.phtml
Quite the saga, that of Mr Celis' beer. I was really sad when Miller stopped ditributing it here--it was as good or better than the imported Hoegaarden, more available while it lasted, not to mention considerably cheaper to boot.
If you like wits, you might want to try the styles known as Saison, Biere de Garde, Country, or Farmhouse ale, which employ some similar brewing methods, but usually lack the spices. Maybe Belgian and Belgian-style tripples as well.
Heres a couple more links about this story, some of which mention similar witbiers:
http://www.allaboutbeer.com/style/23.4-witbier.html
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/styles/2_4style.html
http://www.homebrewmart.com/newslet1.html
http://www.alexanderwines.co.uk/beerguide.shtml
The truely nerdy may find that,
"A Turn-of-the Century British Account of Selected 19th Century Belgian Brewing Methods"
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.6/mosher.html
may be of interest--what a contrast to todays beer factories!
Back to regular programming, and cheers.
