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**Wayne1** · 09-21-2012, 12:43 AM

Hoegaarden is owned by InBev and has been since the 1990's.

Pierre Celis, who first revived the Belgian Witbier, left Hoegaarden and relocated to Austin, TX because he felt that InBev pressured him to make changes to the recipe to make it more "mass market"

Recently, thanks to MillerCoors, the Celis family has regained control of the recipe for Celis White (original version of the recipe Pierre made in Belgium). The Austin brewery should be starting up production again.

The current Gold Medal winner at the World Beer Cup for Belgian Style Witbier is Allashgash White made in Maine.

The Blue Moon recipe is very close to the traditional Belgian Wit ingredients with the exception of the yeast. It uses a neutral ale yeast rather than the ester laden Belgian yeasts. Dr. Keith Villa, who formulated Blue Moon, did get his doctorate in fermentation science in Belgium. He certainly knows quite a bit about how to formulate a recipe.

**SavoryChef** · 09-21-2012, 01:05 AM

Doesn't hoegaarden have camomile in it?

jesseroberge · 09-21-2012, 01:06 AM

Then can anyone tell me what to brew that will reflect Hoegaarden please

**Wayne1** · 09-21-2012, 01:17 AM

In the Nov. 2000 issue of Brew Your Own (the All Things Belgian issue) they give a recipe for Hoegaarden Wit:

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

2 lbs. pale malt
2 lbs. malted wheat
1 lb flaked wheat
1 lb flaked oats
2 lbs. unhopped wheat dry malt extract
3 AAU East Kent Goldings hops (0.75 oz. at 4% AA)
2 AAU Saaz hops (0.5 oz. at 4% AA)
1/8 oz. lightly crushed coriander seed
1/4 oz. dried Curaco orange peel, shredded
Belgian witbier yeast slurry (White Labs WLP400 or Wyeast 3944)

All-Grain Option
Replace DME with an extra 1.5 lbs. ea. of pale malt and malted wheat
All-Extract Option
Omit pale and wheat malts, steep flaked grains at 150F for 30 mins remove grains, increase DME to 5 lbs

Mash @ 163F to start 9 qts water (152F for 90 mins)
Sparge w/ 12 qts @ 170F
Add DME, boil Add E. Kent Goldings hops, boil 45 min Add Saaz hops, boil 15 min Remove from heat, remove hops if possible Add coriander and orange peel, steep 30 min Cool to 70F add enough water to make 5.25 gal
Pitch yeast
Ferment at 65F for 2 weeks
Rack to secondary cool to 45F for 3-4 weeks
Prime with DME, bottle and age 3-4 weeks at 45 - 50F

jesseroberge · 09-21-2012, 11:52 AM

Cool, this looks alot like blue moon clone

I'm gonna give it a try

jwalker1140 · 09-21-2012, 03:25 PM

IMHO, you'd do well to hang on to every word Wayne1 writes. I've learned a ton from reading his posts. And I can personally vouch for the tastiness of his Blue Moon recipe in the thread that's linked from his signature (which, btw, I enjoy more than Hoegaarden. YMMV.). Regardless, I would highly recommend reading through the thread if you're interested at all in American-style witbiers. Some fascinating historical info in there.

**ZombieBrew83** · 09-21-2012, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwalker1140

IMHO, you'd do well to hang on to every word Wayne1 writes. I've learned a ton from reading his posts. And I can personally vouch for the tastiness of his Blue Moon recipe in the thread that's linked from his signature (which, btw, I enjoy more than Hoegaarden. YMMV.). Regardless, I would highly recommend reading through the thread if you're interested at all in American-style witbiers. Some fascinating historical info in there.

+1. Big props to Wayne1. The Blue Moon clone thread he has in his sig is well worth the read if you are looking to brew something like Blue Moon or Hoegaarden. TONS of great stuff in there. I'm finishing up my batch from his recipe and it has been wonderful. I prefer HOegaarden but my wife prefers Blue Moon. And as the saying goes "happy wife, happy life."