Shade Tree Brewing

This beer was inspired by Hoegaarden, brewed in Belgium. It was brewed with 44% flaked wheat and 10% flaked oats. Corriander, fresh zest from farmers market oranges, and dried chamomile flowers were added near the end of the boil to create zesty aromatics in the finished beer. The result is a light bodied, refreshing, highly drinkable beer. Get the detailed recipe here.

The History of Witbier

Witbier, white beer, (French: la bière blanche), or simply witte is a barley/wheat, top-fermented beer brewed mainly in Belgium, although there are also examples in the Netherlands and elsewhere. It gets its name due to suspended yeast and wheat proteins which cause the beer to look hazy, or white, when cold. It is a descendant from those medieval beers which were not brewed with hops, but instead flavoured and preserved with a blend of spices and other plants.

At one point Witbier almost vanished completely from the landscape. Its origins date back to the Brabant region east of Brussels in Belgium in the 1500s, where wheat beer had been brewed for hundreds of years. By the 1950s, it had all but disappeared, due to wars, the big movement towards lagers, and breweries being bought and sold or closing down altogether. In 1966, a man named Pierre Celis, one of the greatest and most influential minds in the history of modern brewing, established the De Kluis Brewery, next to his house in Hoegaarden. He made a beer that the town had once been known for, and the road to recovery was being paved.

Witbier Characteristics

A moderate sweetness with light notes of honey or vanilla and spicy, fragrant wheat aromatics will be the nose that is an earmark of these beers. They’re very pale straw to very light gold in color, with a cloudiness from starch haze and yeast and a dense, white, mousy head with lacing that should be present until the last sip. Witbier has an incredibly flavorful, refreshing sweetness combined with a zesty, orange-citrusy fruitiness. Herbal, spicy flavors from the coriander will be ever present, but should not dominate the flavor of the beer. Like Hefeweizen, hop bitterness is low to medium-low. They’re medium-light to medium bodied with a smoothness and light creaminess from the unmalted wheat and occasional oats, with a dry, tart finish.