Wheat's a treat
Hoegaarden started a wheat beer trend in the UK that has grown steadily ever since. Ben McFarland sheds light on this burgeoning beer style.
It's been more than a decade since Hoegaarden first arrived on these shores and, oh my, what a success it's been. Who would have thought it? That a murky beer with an unpronounceable name, served with a slice of lemon in a funny shaped glass, and priced at around £3 a pint would be such a runaway hit with UK drinkers.
It could all have been so different, however. Despite a long legacy in Belgium's brewing history, wheat beers were almost banished to the cellar in the sky following the war.
In the 1950s, Belgian drinkers were opting for pilsner-type brews and wheat beers, largely made by small brewers, were playing a distinct second fiddle to the big players and were seen as old hat.
However, a former milkman and next-door neighbour to the brewery, Pierre Celis, believed the future was white and he began brewing under the Hoegaarden name in 1966.
"White beers suffered in Belgium in the same way mild has suffered over here," said Ted Bruning, editor of Campaign for Real Ale's magazine What's Brewing. "But it staged a major comeback thanks primarily to its huge popularity with students in Belgium."
Despite its runaway revival, Pierre's purse strings became stretched and in the 1980s Interbrew stepped in to buy the brewery.
With Interbrew's backing, although heavyweight advertising for the brand has been conspicuous by its absence, Hoegaarden has helped plough a furrow for a thriving speciality sector that many believe represents the future for beer drinking in the UK.
The wheat/white beer sector has ballooned in recent years and licensees now have a dazzling array of different brands to choose from. It's a category that is cloudier than the beer itself, however. Much confusion surrounds what is a white beer and what is a wheat beer. It is often, wrongly, claimed that the styles are the respective styles from Germany and Belgium.
Alastair Hook, owner and head brewer at the Meantime Brewery in Greenwich, South East London, and former Munich resident, concurred. "The confusion comes from the fact that people find it difficult to distinguish between the German word for white, weisse, and the word for wheat, weizen," he said. "With a thick Bavarian accent, it's pretty difficult to tell the difference - it all comes down to German phonetics."
Right, that's that sorted then. Another misconception is that, due to its pale colour, wheat beers are closer to lagers than ale.
The beer undergoes a primary top fermentation, like ale, and is usually re-seeded for secondary fermentation in bottle or keg.
Wheat beers were once brewed all over Europe prior to lager's invasion, but now there are really only two main styles and two main producers of wheat beer, the Belgians and the Germans.
The Belgian wheat beers are made with at least 50 per cent wheat, usually of the raw variety, and 50 per cent barley malt. Belgian wheat beers are always unfiltered, and more often than not, spices and fruit such as coriander and orange peel are used in the brewing process.
"Belgian wheat beers are generally lighter bodied, full of fruit with citrus and sweet flavours," said Rupert Ponsonby of the Beer Academy. "The coriander makes Belgian wheat beers good with spicy fish dishes."
Examples of the Belgian variety, aside from Hoegaarden, include Brugs Tarwebier, Wieckse Witte, imported and distributed by Specialist Brand Development, and Gulpener, actually sourced from Maastricht and available through Coors Brewers.
The origin of the German "weiss" biers, predominantly made in and around the Bavarian region, stretches back to ancient times when only breweries owned by the royal family were allowed to use wheat.
The southern German brewers use barley and malted wheat but wouldn't dream of adding spices. The proportion of wheat tends to be higher in Germany - Franziskaner Weissbier, for instance, uses an especially high proportion, more than two-thirds.
"They often have a lemony character, taste of bubblegum and bananas and have a fuller body," said Rupert.
To confuse things there are German weiss beers that are dark. Franziskaner, available through Holsten UK, produces three kinds of weissbier. Franziskaner Dunkel Hefe-Weissbier is its dark version.
For licensees wanting to get their hands on other Bavarian beauties, Specialist Brand Development has recently clinched a distribution deal for the wonderful Paulaner while Refresh UK is the company to speak to regarding LöwenWeisse and Daniel Thwaites for Konig Ludwig Weissbier.
Scottish Courage has also thrown its hat into the ring with the launch of Kronenbourg Blanc, a wheat beer that is neither Belgian nor German, but French. It is brewed in Strasbourg and following an extensive test period in London and Scotland, the national brewer is rolling it out nation wide.
The wheat beer legacy of the past few years has also influenced the domestic scene where regional brewers are increasingly using wheat in their brews. Arran Blonde, made in Scotland, is a much revered British-take on a continental style.
