Blue moon beer question :)

Is this beer a beer that looks lime a hoegaarden ?

Hoegaarden is what Blue Moon is trying to be. And failing quite miserably in my opinion.

With respect - Blue Moon is *not* trying to be a Witbier. It is a wheat beer flavored with orange and lime, but the similarity ends there.

BM uses ale yeast, not Belgian yeast, as well as American hops and oats. There is a good thread here with one of its inventors - read on several pages, as the original recipe at the top of the post is indeed Hoegaarden style and *not* a BM clone.

It says Belgian style White Beer right on the label and it's brewed with orange and coriander. They're obviously not trying to be a traditional witbier but its definitely a variation on the style.

Had my first (and last!) Blue Moon last night

I won't drink BMC products but I will drink Blue Moon since its a craft beer.

beerloaf

29thfloor said:

It says Belgian style White Beer right on the label and it's brewed with orange and coriander. They're obviously not trying to be a traditional witbier but its definitely a variation on the style.

Click to expand...

Zactly

In bev owns the blue moon label. I like blue moon but since I refuse to add to BMCs earnings I brew my own.

petie said:

In bev owns the blue moon label. I like blue moon but since I refuse to add to BMCs earnings I brew my own.

Click to expand...

I thought Blue Moon was owned by MillerCoors? Either way, there's much better examples of the style available IMHO, and making a better one is pretty easy as well.

beerloaf said:

I won't drink BMC products but I will drink Blue Moon since its a craft beer.

beerloaf

Click to expand...

Isn't BM a BMC beer?

Blue Moon Belgian White, a Belgian-style witbier brewed by Blue Moon Brewing Co. in Golden, Colorado, was launched in 1995. Blue Moon Brewing Co. is a part of Tenth and Blake Beer Company, the craft and import division of Chicago-based MillerCoors.

MillerCoors is a joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing Company.

Molson Coors Brewing Company formed in 2005 by the merger of Molson of Canada and Coors of the United States and SABMiller is a British multinational brewing and beverage company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.

Guys with all that said and done is the blue moon a taste alike of a hoegarden ? I'm looking for a good witbier because the last recipie from northern brewer in the beer smith data base tasted like **** !! It was a hefeweisen and the numbers and readings were SMACK on target, but all and all tastes like **** Water with high temp banana floral fermentation tastes I want a real wheat beer like Hoegaarden

All the postes talked about the makers of this beer but no one said if it was a taste alike

Personally I think Blue Moon taste like nothing I have ever wanted to put in my mouth.

I made the Austin Homebrew Supply Belgian White and it was pretty tasty. My friends liked it too.

So why not try BM and find out for yourself or just drink Horgaarden?

They are similar in that they are lighter beers that both use coriander and orange peel. Does BM taste more like Hoegaarden than the hefeweisen you brewed? It should. Would a casual drinker consider BM to be a 'taste alike' of Hoegaarden. Probably. Would someone who has a deep appreciation of Belgian beers think BM is a 'taste alike'? Probably Not. Will it be close enough for your taste? I have no idea. Brew it and see.

When I'm out, and the choice is BMC or Blue Moon/ Fat Tire, guess which I order.

If you are looking to brew a Belgian wit, hoegaarden is the current definition of the style. It has the flavor and character of the style that is completely missing in blue moon. I would highly recommend you try one before you brew a wit or you may be surprised by the unique flavors a good wit has. If blue moon is your reference you might even think you screwed something up
If you brew a true to style wit.

I dislike wheat beers, especially wits, but I'll tell you that Blue Moon doesn't taste like Hoegaarden.

Blue Moon is a "dumbed down" wit beer. Just like you wouldn't consider Miller Lite a pilsner (which it is billed as), you wouldn't consider Blue Moon a wit.

Sure, there might be similarities in color but Blue Moon has little flavor. If you brew a Blue Moon clone, it will be not much like Hoegaarden, and vice versa.

I like wheat beers, but Blue Moon is hit or miss for me. Sometimes it will taste pretty darn good, then other times it's just got too much bite for me to handle. I tried a sixer of their pumpkin ale, which isn't bad but nowhere near as good as the Schalfly's my brother brought back. Even though there's more abv in the Schlafly, it's way smoother than Blue Moon's.

CBXBob said:

When I'm out, and the choice is BMC or Blue Moon/ Fat Tire, guess which I order.

Click to expand...

Same as me. I love Fat Tire and am debating on whether I should order the "phat tyre" kit from NB.

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.

Doesn't hoegaarden have camomile in it?

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

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

Cool, this looks alot like blue moon clone I'm gonna give it a try

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.

jwalker1140 said:

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.

Click to expand...

+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."