Hoegaarden Brewery

Brouwerij de Kluis was founded by Pierre Celis in Hoegaarden in Flanders in 1966. The village of Hoegaarden had been known for its witbieren (white beers, see wheat beer) since the Middle Ages. However, around 1955, the last local witbier brewery, Tomsin, closed its doors. Celis, a milkman, decided some ten years later to try to revive the style. He began the new brewery in his hay loft.
Celis used the traditional ingredients of water, yeast, wheat, hops, coriander and dried Curaçao orange peel. With demand for the product continuing to grow, Celis bought, in the 1980s, Hougardia, a local soft-drink factory that he rebuilt into a brewery.
After a fire in 1985, as is traditional in Belgium, several brewers offered their help. One of these was the largest brewer in the country, called Interbrew (after a merger with AmBev, renamed InBev). Interbrew lent money for the purchase of other buildings to rebuild the brewery. Over time, Celis felt very strongly that the company used the loan to pressure him to change the recipe to make the beer more "mass market". The perspective was different inside Interbrew - some felt that that Celis' tinkering with the recipe was hampering brand growth and tried to attain a permanent consistency. Perhaps simply incompatible approaches to brewing.
Celis decided instead to sell them the brewery, and with the proceeds, he moved to the United States, where he set up the Celis Brewery in Austin, Texas to continue making witbier to what he described as the original Hoegaarden recipe.
Beers currently in the Hoegaarden brand include:
Hoegaarden, a 4.9% ABV witbier, the brewery's flagship beer.
Das, a 5% ABV pale-amber barley beer.
Speciale, a 6.5% ABV seasonal witbier.
Grand Cru, an 8.7% ABV strong ale (In Britain it is 8.5% ABV)
Verboden Vrucht (forbidden fruit), a 8.5% ABV strong dark ale
All brands spiced with coriander and Curacao orange peel and refermented. Before the move, refermented Leffe Triple was also made at the Hoegaarden brewery.
In November 2005, InBev announced the forthcoming closure of the brewery in Hoegaarden, among other changes in Belgium. The brewery was to close in late 2006 with production moving to InBev's larger brewery in Jupille. The beer 'Julius' is said to have been an immediate casualty, and worries were that all beers that were "refermented" would be changed.
The closure sparked protests from Hoegaarden locals, upset at the loss of the town's most famous symbol (and largest employer).
To date, the move has still not been completed. The brewers in Jupille remain unsatisfied with local production of the witbier, so production remains, at least for the moment, in Hoegaarden.
After selling out to Interbrew, Celis founded Celis Brewing Company in Austin, Texas, which was later acquired by Miller Brewing. He never fully relocated to Texas, but his daughter and son-in-law, who operated the brewery, did. Miller ultimately closed the brewery and sold the equipment and brand names to Michigan Brewing Company.
The witbier he brewed in Texas, which he described as the original Hoegaarden recipe, was at the same time brewed in Belgium, first by Brouwerij De Smedt and then by Brouwerij van Steenberge. The beer is still being actively brewed in Belgium.
[edit] Tradition
Hoegaarden tradition states that the first Hoegaarden of the day must be finished in three gulps. The amount taken-in during the first and second gulp is of no concern as long as the third gulp completes the pint.
Note: this assumes a glass size of 25 cl - not the oversized 50 cl glass InBev often pushes in export markets.