Hoegaarden

Why would a beer that was once a fine representative of a style no longer be?

Boak and Bailey provoked what turned into a longread last week by asking “What’s the reference beer for each style? Especially more obscure styles, we suppose.” @BoakandBailey quickly added, “So, to clarify: reference doesn’t necessarily mean the best, just the most representative. If you’d never had style X before, would that beer help you understand it?”

Start at the top, keep scrolling, take your time, feel free to wander off into some of conversations within the conversation. I’ll wait.

At the end, @joelandrewwinn writes, “Curious to see the responses when North America wakes up tomorrow. My guess is there will be opinions.” If comments broke out, I didn’t find them. That doesn’t matter. This isn’t about the best American reference for a mild (although Rocksteady on cask at Good Word Brewing in Duluth, Ga., was awfully good Saturday before last). Or a reference for Americanized or “traditional” German pilsner, or pastry stout or whatever.

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Let’s hear it for the Hoegaarden appellation

Hoegaarden breweryInBev has given up moving Hoegaarden out of the city of the same name, the place that it originated.

As of June 1 all the Hoegaarden beer will be brewed there. Much different than in 2006, when InBev announced it would move production to Jupille.

Seems that didn’t work out so well. By 2007 production was a problem. Part of that was because of increased demand, but a union official claimed, “The beer they produce there often has to be thrown out because it is not at all fit for consumption. So a lot of the white beer coming from Jupille is being shipped to the Netherlands to be made into pig feed. It really is a crisis.”

In any event, InBev has revamped the Hoegaarden facility, boosting capacity to 1 million hectoliters. Hoegaarden won gold last week in the World Beer Cup.