Is Blue Moon an accurate representation of a Witbier?

[Bob]

This thread is interesting and infuriating at the same time.

Pierre Celis is the man who revived Hoegaarden before coming to America and establishing another Belgian brewery - Celis, of course - complete with Belgian brewers and Belgian ingredients, who is virtually single-handedly responsible for the style even being extant. And both of his beers get lumped into the "ho-hum" category in favor of beers that shouldn't even be compared with traditional Witbier. Brooklyn's Grand Cru and Double White are completely different beers. They're too BIG to be Witbier.

Those reviews are not a statement that Hoegaarden or Celis aren't good Witbiers. It's a condemnation of the whole rotten consumer-driven review process. The benchmarks aren't "bigger faster LOUDER MORE", so they get "ho-hum" reviews.

Sometimes we beer geeks just suck. We get jaded, so we only pay attention to the biggest, baddest beer on the block, the beer version of an H1 with no muffler and a 12" lift kit. Suddenly everything else pales in comparison. So we go and buy it up. The other brewers notice, and suddenly everyone's got Imperial This or Double That. And we buy that, too. The infuriating part is that excellent beers - like fresh Hoegaarden or Celis - get lost in all the noise and exhaust fumes. Hell, most breweries have dropped their session beers.

That's why I never pay attention to the review sites, and always advise anyone who'll listen to do the same. In the first place, they're quantitatively and qualitatively useless, because very, very few people who post to them actually know how to properly review anything. In the second, they do far much more damage than good to the beer scene as a whole.

That's my stand.

Bob

 

[SumnerH]

One problem I have with Allagash is their price for 4 bottles is more than 6 of a very decent alternative (in my opinion of course).

They're on tap at a lot of places in the area (e.g. Vermillion and Rustico in Alexandria, which have the same owners as Tallula/Eat Bar in Arlington) in the same price range as anything else.

 

[SumnerH]

Pierre Celis is the man who revived Hoegaarden before coming to America and establishing another Belgian brewery - Celis, of course - complete with Belgian brewers and Belgian ingredients, who is virtually single-handedly responsible for the style even being extant. And both of his beers get lumped into the "ho-hum" category in favor of beers that shouldn't even be compared with traditional Witbier And both of his beers get lumped into the "ho-hum" category in favor of beers that shouldn't even be compared with traditional Witbier. Brooklyn's Grand Cru and Double White are completely different beers. They're too BIG to be Witbier.

If you like Celis' take on Wits (I do) please try the St Bernardus Wit that I've recommended. Pierre Celis designed that one, too. It's not a huge beer, either (5.5% ABV). The other one I recommended initially (Allagash White) is not a big beer at 5% ABV, just a very well executed wit.

And, FWIW, both of these rank higher at those maligned beer sites than the big double-wits you railed against (which are really a slightly different style, agreed).

I do think Hoegaarden's a fine wit indeed, just not quite up there with St Bernardus or Allagash.

 

[humann_brewing]

I use to like Blue Moon when it started to get notariety, but then I found that Coors made it and it was not as intersting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_(beer)) ) I just can't convince myself to pay a craft price for a coors no matter if it is better than their major sellers or not.

Don't get me wrong, when they are free or it is the best thing at a local bar and it's happy hour, but I'm not going to pay $7-9 for a sixer of it.

It also look like Bud has jumped on the bandwagon with their shocktop http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/29/39908 I do like theirs better and I have a bar here that has it for $1 all day/every day.

 

[Homercidal]

I use to like Blue Moon when it started to get notariety, but then I found that Coors made it and it was not as intersting (Blue Moon (beer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) ) I just can't convince myself to pay a craft price for a coors no matter if it is better than their major sellers or not.

Don't get me wrong, when they are free or it is the best thing at a local bar and it's happy hour, but I'm not going to pay $7-9 for a sixer of it.

It also look like Bud has jumped on the bandwagon with their shocktop Shock Top Belgian White - Anheuser-Busch, Inc. - BeerAdvocate I do like theirs better and I have a bar here that has it for $1 all day/every day.

I believe that Blue Moon as bought by Coors, but before they bought it, the company spent considerable time making a great tasting, if not spot on, Wit.

Remember that nobody makes the same beer as everyone else, and there is room to play within a style.

I believe Pierre Celis moved on from MBC after helping them with the recipe for Celis White, and last i heard he was somewhere in Texas doing some more helping??

And ShockTop is not very good IMO. More like an orange wheat beer than a Wit I think.

 

[SumnerH]

I believe that Blue Moon as bought by Coors, but before they bought it, the company spent considerable time making a great tasting, if not spot on, Wit.

Nope. Blue Moon was created by Coors master brewer Keith Villa at the Sandlot brewery at Coors Field c. 1995. That's since been renamed the Blue Moon Brewery at the Sandlot, but it's always been Coors owned and operated. It won many awards c. 1995-1997.

They have gone out of their way not to advertise that Blue Moon is a Coors product to avoid knee-jerk "BMC=bad!" reactions from craft beer fans.

I find humann_brewing's reaction sillly: he says he liked the beer until he found out Coors made it and now he won't buy it. That makes no sense to me, if you like the beer what does it matter who makes it? But I guess that's exactly the sort of elitism they were attempting to prevent by not advertising it as part of the Coors line.

Remember that nobody makes the same beer as everyone else, and there is room to play within a style.

I believe Pierre Celis moved on from MBC after helping them with the recipe for Celis White, and last i heard he was somewhere in Texas doing some more helping??

He was planning on working with the Real Ale Brewing Company, but it wound up a no-go in late 2006 because the Texas laws constraining marketing by brewers were too tight for Celis' comfort.

Pierre himself remains in Belgium (his daughter and her then-husband ran the earlier Celis brewery in Austin; Pierre never moved to Texas).

And ShockTop is not very good IMO. More like an orange wheat beer than a Wit I think.

It's really bad, IMO.

 

[Coastarine]

Great lakes holy moses is another that I enjoy. It probably gets voted in the same so-so range as hoegaarden, but I love that beer too, so I guess its just my taste.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

I most definately avoid at all costs anything brewed by BMC. Its the same reason I don't eat at chain restaurants. They just aren't going to get my money.

Blue Moon chaps my ass for one simple reason. 90% of America thinks it is from Belgian and they are all fancy. I get a lot of people, who see me order some beer, then go on to talk to me about there great Belgian wit beer (you know, like whit ). groan.

I like people getting into different styles, but I have had that conversation soooooooo many times. Yes, BM is pretty good. Did you know........

Marketing makes the world go round.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Great lakes holy moses is another that I enjoy. It probably gets voted in the same so-so range as hoegaarden, but I love that beer too, so I guess its just my taste.

ooohhhhhh How did I forget! That one is probably my #2 behind Wittekerke.

 

[humann_brewing]

I find humann_brewing's reaction sillly: he says he liked the beer until he found out Coors made it and now he won't buy it. That makes no sense to me, if you like the beer what does it matter who makes it? But I guess that's exactly the sort of elitism they were attempting to prevent by not advertising it as part of the Coors line.

Sorry, I sometimes don't give the full story. What I should have added that this was in my infancy of drinking beer and I certainly liked the taste of BM, but I had also never had another Wit before. Once I realized it was Coors, I decided to try another and found many others that tasted better.

 

[GearBeer]

Pierre Celis is the man who revived Hoegaarden before coming to America and establishing another Belgian brewery - Celis, of course - complete with Belgian brewers and Belgian ingredients, who is virtually single-handedly responsible for the style even being extant. And both of his beers get lumped into the "ho-hum" category in favor of beers that shouldn't even be compared with traditional Witbier. Brooklyn's Grand Cru and Double White are completely different beers. They're too BIG to be Witbier.

Those reviews are not a statement that Hoegaarden or Celis aren't good Witbiers. It's a condemnation of the whole rotten consumer-driven review process. The benchmarks aren't "bigger faster LOUDER MORE", so they get "ho-hum" reviews.

Sometimes we beer geeks just suck. We get jaded, so we only pay attention to the biggest, baddest beer on the block, the beer version of an H1 with no muffler and a 12" lift kit. Suddenly everything else pales in comparison. So we go and buy it up. The other brewers notice, and suddenly everyone's got Imperial This or Double That. And we buy that, too. The infuriating part is that excellent beers - like fresh Hoegaarden or Celis - get lost in all the noise and exhaust fumes. Hell, most breweries have dropped their session beers.

That's why I never pay attention to the review sites, and always advise anyone who'll listen to do the same. In the first place, they're quantitatively and qualitatively useless, because very, very few people who post to them actually know how to properly review anything. In the second, they do far much more damage than good to the beer scene as a whole.

That's my stand.

Bob

Bob,

You've hit on a very important thing here. When you're visiting a ranking site you're generally not going to receive an impartial review of how well a certain beer fits it's style. They're actually measurements of how much people liked the beer.

Generally, when I want a good representation of a style I hit up the BJCP's style guide. The newest edition of the style guide lists beers in order of their representation of a given style. Notice where the "ho hum" Wits rank in the list I copied from the BJCP.

Commercial Examples: Hoegaarden Wit, St. Bernardus Blanche, Celis White, Vuuve 5, Brugs Tarwebier (Blanche de Bruges), Wittekerke, Allagash White, Blanche de Bruxelles, Ommegang Witte, Avery White Rascal, Unibroue Blanche de Chambly, Sterkens White Ale, Bell’s Winter White Ale, Victory Whirlwind Witbier, Hitachino Nest White Ale

 

[Homercidal]

He was planning on working with the Real Ale Brewing Company, but it wound up a no-go in late 2006 because the Texas laws constraining marketing by brewers were too tight for Celis' comfort.

Pierre himself remains in Belgium (his daughter and her then-husband ran the earlier Celis brewery in Austin; Pierre never moved to Texas).



It's really bad, IMO.

Ah, My bad, I meant that he moved on to Texas professionally, not physically. I never heard how that turned out. I was looking forward to trying it!

I did not know about Blue Moon. But it says right on the label that it's made by Coors... in America.

 

[RCCOLA]

Bob,

You've hit on a very important thing here. When you're visiting a ranking site you're generally not going to receive an impartial review of how well a certain beer fits it's style. They're actually measurements of how much people liked the beer.

+1 to that reply.You know that you can't take a rating site seriously when someone gives an IPA a terrible rating followed up by the statement"I don't like hoppy beers"and the rest of their ratings for malty beers are all good.I think half of the raters just look at what other people said about a beer and word it similiarily.Just read SNPA Torpedo ratings where people reference "just a bigger SNPA"or"great cascade hop flavor"Get off it!(rant)

 

[Bob]

You've hit on a very important thing here. When you're visiting a ranking site you're generally not going to receive an impartial review of how well a certain beer fits it's style. They're actually measurements of how much people liked the beer.

Truth is, I'm not really talking about style. I'm talking more about how exceptional, nay perfect beers get lower marks than the Huge Flavor Bomb du jour.

Though style does enter into it, in that "Imperial" (God, I hate that word) versions of a style are too often lumped in with the normal-gravity benchmarks of the style. It is invariably to the benchmark's detriment. Always.

That perpetuates this ridiculous "It can't be any good unless it shocks into wakefulness the three taste buds I've got that are still functional" trend I rail about regularly here on HBT. Because credulous readers look at the reviews and believe them. That's sad. And we home-brewers have a HUGE hand in that.

Notice where the "ho hum" Wits rank in the list I copied from the BJCP.

Odd, innit? I'd rank Ommegang higher, but the bastards didn't ask me.

Cheers,

Bob

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

I would not rank Hoe's garden #1. That said, I have not had it fresh from the source or anything. I just prefer the others over it. I am also miffed that Holy Moses isn't on there.

 

[Pinck]

Generally, when I want a good representation of a style I hit up the BJCP's style guide. The newest edition of the style guide lists beers in order of their representation of a given style. Notice where the "ho hum" Wits rank in the list I copied from the BJCP.

Commercial Examples: Hoegaarden Wit, St. Bernardus Blanche, Celis White, Vuuve 5, Brugs Tarwebier (Blanche de Bruges), Wittekerke, Allagash White, Blanche de Bruxelles, Ommegang Witte, Avery White Rascal, Unibroue Blanche de Chambly, Sterkens White Ale, Bell’s Winter White Ale, Victory Whirlwind Witbier, Hitachino Nest White Ale

I dunno, I would put Blanche de Chambly much higher if the "ho-hummers" are supposed to be sinking to the bottom. It nails the style and does so as one heck of a beer.

 

[SumnerH]

Generally, when I want a good representation of a style I hit up the BJCP's style guide.

I'm really not keen on BJCP, and wits are one of the kinds I think they mess up their description of the most*.

That said, the actual beers they pick are pretty good representatives--but it's not always the case that the "definitive" version of a style is the best. Hoegaarden would absolutely be the beer I'd pick if I were trying to explain the style, as it's the most widely available version that is closely in-style (Blue Moon is even more widely available, but it misses the style in a few significant ways).

To pick a far-removed style, Guinness Draught would probably rank as the canonical example of a dry Irish stout (and checking, it does) even though a lot of stout fans wouldn't pick it as the _best_ example.

Now, all that said I do really like Hoegaarden and Guinness both. Not being my absolute favorite version of a style doesn't mean I don't think something's a very good beer.

*Though California common is the most egregious example of BJCP's idiosyncratic style definitions, IMO; BJCP describes the style as essentially "Anchor Steam clone", when it's purely a method of beer-making (using lager yeast at ale temperatures) that can be used to make a wide variety of different tasting beers, of which Anchor Steam is the most common.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

So SumnerH... you seem to have a rather good handle on this wit stuff..... got any recipes yer hide'n?




















seriously.

 

[SumnerH]

So SumnerH... you seem to have a rather good handle on this wit stuff..... got any recipes yer hide'n?

Nothing secret. I've been stuck with extract (I'm going all-grain soon, finally), but I've had good luck with the recipe Rob Tod (head brewmaster at Allagash) published. I used a tiny bit each of ginger and cinnamon as the "secret spice" for more of a wintery spin on things (though really there's so little in there that it doesn't make much difference), using Wyeast 3944 (Hoegaarden).

The recipe allows for a range from 50/50 wheat/barley to 40/60; I went 50/50, using Briess wheat DME with Briess pilsner DME to make up the difference.. I also pitched around 63 and let the temperature rise to 70 after that rather than just starting at 70.

Next time I'm culturing the Allagash yeast and playing it straight with just a hint of white pepper as the secret spice.

Rob Tod's recipe (presumably a Belgian pilsener malt (e.g. Dingeman's) and flaked wheat 50/50 to hit the same OG if you're all grain, should be a simple single-step mash):


Boil
6.6 lbs. 40% wheat/ 60% barley liquid malt extract or:
3.3 lbs. light/pilsner malt extract and 3.3 lbs 100% wheat malt extract (75 minutes)

3/4 oz. Tettnanger (60 minutes)
3/4 oz. Saaz (60 minutes)
1/4 oz. Saaz (flameout)
1/4 oz crushed coriander (flameout)
1/4 oz bitter orange peel (flameout)
1 pinch "secret spice" (flameout) (anise, cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, or ginger) your choice

Yeast
WhiteLabs WLP400 or WLP410.....or Wyeast 3944 or 3463....ferment at 70 degrees

 

[Fat Guy Brewing]

I am totally green with envy over anyone who can get Celis White. The whole Celis line, White, Pale Bock, Raspberry, Grand Cru are my favorite beers. I used to drink them all the time when I lived in Texas and still miss it. When I went back about 9 years ago, I brought back 6 cases. Then his partners sold out to Miller which came in and began using cheaper ingredients so he sold his part to them as well and within a year Miller closed the operation. It sounds like he is still floating around instilling his magic at various brewerys in Belgium and the US. All hail Pierre Celis and recognize his genius for he is truly doing the Lord's work.

 

[Homercidal]

I am totally green with envy over anyone who can get Celis White. The whole Celis line, White, Pale Bock, Raspberry, Grand Cru are my favorite beers. I used to drink them all the time when I lived in Texas and still miss it. When I went back about 9 years ago, I brought back 6 cases. Then his partners sold out to Miller which came in and began using cheaper ingredients so he sold his part to them as well and within a year Miller closed the operation. It sounds like he is still floating around instilling his magic at various brewerys in Belgium and the US. All hail Pierre Celis and recognize his genius for he is truly doing the Lord's work.

I agree. The Grand Cru is very nice. Haven't tried the others. It's a shame to see the brewery in Hoegaarden closed. It's a real shame.

 

[dogbar]

Celis is still working with at least one brewery. The 512 brewing company here in Austin opened last year and Mr. Celis has been at least somewhat involved:

Full circle: At 83, Belgian master brewer Pierre Celis shares his expertise with a new generation

With that said, folks who remember the old Celis White may not be missing anything if they can't get the "re-introduced" version. To me, it tastes seriously dumbed down from what it used to be.

 

[Fat Guy Brewing]

Dogbar, thanks for the article, man. That's a great read, makes my day.

 

[SumnerH]

With that said, folks who remember the old Celis White may not be missing anything if they can't get the "re-introduced" version. To me, it tastes seriously dumbed down from what it used to be.

St Bernardus Wit is a Pierre Celis-designed wit and it is fantastic--and still available in a true-to-original formulation. If you're interested in what he can do at the top of his game, with a brewery that isn't dumbing it down, find this beer!

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Celis White from back in the day, one of my favorite beers ever. My first beer I ever brewed was a Belgian White in hopes it would be like Celis.

Is it just me or was Blue Moon good a few years back and they changed it or something. I had one the other day and it tasted like you poured a shot of Belgian Wheat in a Coors or something, not good.

I had some Easy Street Wheat the other day, now that is a Wheat Beer! mmmm...

 

[mciaio]

...it tasted like you poured a shot of Belgian Wheat in a Coors or something, not good.

That's what I thought and why I started this thread. I have some good blue moon and some blue moon that tastes like weird coors light.

 

[humann_brewing]

I thought everyone would be interested in seeing the following


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhO_8pHcdGM]YouTube - Beer Wars Movie: Blue Moon Clip[/ame]

 

[Homercidal]

I tend to like Blue Moon more and less depending on who knows what. Sometimes it's great, other times it's just ok. I think it's me, because that happens to several styles of beer. I like variety and can bored with the same thing over and over.

I knew Celis was working with some other brewery! Can't wait to see how that stuff tastes. I'll serious have to do a beer swap with someone if I can't get it up here.

 

[dontman]

i am aparently not a wit beer fan. Had a hoegarden last night and I'd rather drink from a hoe in a garden.. ugh!

I like Wits quite a bit. I don't like Hoegarden at all.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I knew Celis was working with some other brewery! Can't wait to see how that stuff tastes. I'll serious have to do a beer swap with someone if I can't get it up here.

(512) Brewing in Austin is also brewing a Celis-collaborated Witbier. Kevin's (at (512)) recipe is very VERY close to the one in my dropdown except he uses all 2-row as the base malt and dried grapefruit peel, since obviously fresh peel is impractical on a commercial scale. The bottling line will be operational this fall, until then if you want to try it you'll have to come down to Austin.