{"id":47007,"date":"2023-04-11T10:10:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T14:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebeertimes.com\/?p=47007"},"modified":"2026-06-24T21:44:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T01:44:33","slug":"witbier-the-legacy-of-pierre-celis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebeertimes.com\/en\/witbier-the-legacy-of-pierre-celis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Revival of the Witbier Style: Pierre Celis and the Legacy of Hoegaarden"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pierre Celis was the man who put the small Belgian village of Hoegaarden<\/a> on the world beer map when in the 1960s he revived a beer style made with wheat and the addition of spices and fruit known as Witbier (white beer).<\/p>\n

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Pierre Celis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Witbier style<\/a> descends from those medieval beers brewed with a mixture of herbs and spices known as “Gruit<\/a>,” and takes its name from the hazy (white at low temperatures) appearance given by the suspended wheat proteins and yeasts.<\/p>\n

The earliest records of its production date back to the 15th century in the Belgian region of Flemish Brabant, where the rich, dark soil is ideal for growing barley, oats, and wheat.<\/p>\n

In those years, the small town of Hoegaarden already had a brewers’ guild that by the 17th century counted almost 30 active breweries throughout the town.<\/p>\n

The special character of the white beers of Brabant came not only from the use of wheat and oats alongside barley malt, but also from the spices and exotic fruits brought to the Low Countries by Dutch merchants.<\/p>\n

For centuries, Hoegaarden was considered the epicenter of this beer style, but it was in the 20th century that breweries began to close, unable to compete with the mass-marketed industrial lagers.<\/p>\n\n