patrick's posts with tag: hoegaarden
 Hoegaarden (pronounced whogarden) is a white beer which is brewed in the Belgian town of Hoegaarden by the De Kluis Brewery which is now owned by Interbrew, the brewery that also owns Stella Artois. It is imported into Britain by Whitbread.
The brilliant white beer is brewed to a traditional recipe which dates as far back as 1445, although the beer Hoegaarden has only existed since 1966. Hoegaarden gets its great taste partly due to there being special ingredients added during the brewing process, such as - wheat, coriander and curacao orange peels. Also the pale, cloudy appearance of this mysterious looking drink is all thanks to an additional second fermentation in the bottle.
Hoegaarden is quite strong for a beer, standing at 5% vol. The beer even has it's own glass which is common with all Belgian beers. This six-sided chunky tumbler style glass, is very stylish and is almost bigger than the beer itself in popularity. The story behind the glass is that it is shaped so that the glass can be prized out of the drinkers hands with a spanner at the end of the night.
However nine years later, a milkman by the name of Pierre Celis, who was talking with his friends about how they missed the old white beer. With this Pierre Celis who used to live next door to the brewery decided it was time to bring back the style. With financial help from his father and brewing help from a veteran brewer he started a small farmhouse brewer he called, The Cloister (or more commonly known as De Kluis, in Flemish).
Hoegaarden's Father - Pierre Celis
The success of his revival of this great beer was shown by the amount of production. It was just 350 hectolitres when it was opened in 1966, it then rapidly grew to about 75,000 hectolitres by 1985. This was a great achievement for the brewery, it was so successful that many other breweries attempted to brew their own white beers. They never managed to even rival the greatness of the original Hoegaarden though.
Once again disaster struck down on the white beer industry. Most of the plant was destroyed by a fire in 1985. To rebuild the plant Pierre Celis had to get extra investment, he found this with Interbrew, the company which also owns Stella Artois. These brewery giants eventually took over the Hoegaarden brewery in 1987.
Now Hoegaarden has a second brewhouse and production in 1997 was recorded as 855,000 hectolitres. There is now regular exports of the drink into Britain and it is rising in popularity greatly, with more and more pubs taking up the drink to sell.
The legend Pierre Celis, the creator of this amazing drink is still alive today. After selling to Interbrew he moved to Texas, America where he continued his great skill of brewing by opening a new brewery, the Celis Brewery, where he produced the beer, Celis white in his brewery in Austin, Texas.
  Just like many other alcohol companies, Hoegaarden also produces other types of drink, I have only tried a few of these but I do have information on them.  Hoegaarden Grand Cru - This has an 8.7% Vol. It is a similar brew to the original Hoegaarden, but is made purely from barley malt, rather than a mixture of wheats, oats and barley. It is Aromatic, pale and strong, this noble complex beer will evolve in character for 3 to 4 years.  Hoegaarden Forbidden Fruit - This has an 8.8% Vol. It is a complex beer made with a mixture of malts and spiced with coriander. It is deep red in colour, rich, sweet, malty and full bodied. Originally it was brewed for a local town festival, it is now apparently a classic export worldwide. This is more commonly known as De Verboden Vrucht by the Belgian's and Le Fruit Defendu by the French, the bottle caused uproar in the USA because the bottle has a picture of Adam and Eve nearly naked on it - it was thought this but it was not a picture of Adam and Eve but it was a picture based on a Reubens painting.
 Hoegaarden Julius - This has an 8.8% Vol. This is suprisingly light and dry and this is due to its triple hopping, this also gives it an intense aroma. This was originally to be called Caesar however it was found that there is already a beer in this name.
 Hoegaarden Speciale - This has a 5.6% Vol. It is a slightly stronger version of the original Hoegaarden but is only brewed in the months of October to February. This has less wheat and more malt barley to give a fuller taste and darker appearance.
 Hougaerdse DAS - This has a 5% Vol. This is brewed from an old German recipe from 1931. It is described as a fruity amber ale and it is spiced with coriander and orange peel. This is the latest beer to emerge from the Hoegaarden Brewery. This has the name Hougaerdse instead of Hoegaarden as this is what the town of Hoegaarden used to be called, you may also find really old memorabilia sporting the name Hougaerdse instead of Hoegaarden on it.
Serving Size: 1 bottle (11.2 fl. oz.)
| | Amount per Serving |
| | Calories 176 | Calories from Fat 0 | |
| | % Daily Value * | | Total Fat 0g | 0% | | Saturated Fat 0g | 0% | | Sodium 0mg | 0% | | Total Carbohydrate 13g | 4% | | Dietary Fiber 0g | 0% | | Protein | 0% |
|
Est. Percent of Calories from:
| Fat 0.0% Carbs 29.5% | | Protein 0.0% |
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