The beers are all white (Pierre Celis)

Pierre Celis is the king of Belgian wheat beer. John White reports

Eighty-one year old Pierre Celis, the founder of the Hoegaarden Brewery, is the King of Belgian wheat beer (white beer, witbier, bière blanche). He is a true giant of the Belgian beer world.

If asked, most beer drinkers could probably tell you that Hoegaarden is an unusual, cloudy, whitish beer, served in a chunky glass. To speciality beer fans, Hoegaarden is synonymous with Belgian White Beer, a beer brewed with wheat as well as malted barley, and spiced with coriander and curaçao.

In fact, Hoegaarden, pronounced ‘who garden’, is a pleasant village, in the Belgian, Dutchspeaking Province of Flemish Brabant, where Pierre was born, in 1925. Hoegaarden beer is named after the village, and half of the beer’s logo is the village’s coat of arms.

Hoegaarden’s population, in 2005, was 6,148.

The village’s biggest employer, the Hoegaarden Brewery (Pierre’s former De Kluis Brewery), received 30,000 visitors each year, both beer enthusiasts and general tourists, largely because of the fame of one particular beer.

Now InBev is transferring production of Hoegaarden to its Jupille-sur-Meuse facility, in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

Hoegaarden was once awash with breweries, which produced wheat beer for hundreds of years.

The village’s water is perfect for brewing this beer style, and the surrounding land is much suited to growing wheat and barley, hence the village became renowned for its wheat beer.

Pierre moved into his present house, in Vroentestraat, in Hoegaarden, whe.....

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By John White

Section : Modern icons

Page number : 48