| The beauty of the Belgian white wheat ale, or wit, is its delicate balance of wheat, hops, yeast and spices. At first glance, many aspects of wit beer look strange: its cloudy appearance, its marshmallowy dense head, its unusually gargantuan glassware, its distinct aroma and even its disrupted history.
We are very lucky in Calgary to get several great examples of eccentric cloudy wit beer. We have our own local micro-brewery Wild Rose’s interpretation of the style: the amusingly named Half Wit. We get the outstanding national example from Quebec’s Unibroue, Blanche de Chambly, which is still one of the best. If those weren’t enough excellent choices, we get what many consider the benchmark for the style, Hoegaarden, still made to the original recipe.
One would be hard-pressed to write about the Belgian wit without mentioning Pierre Celis, a milkman from the town of Hoegaarden, who missed his Belgian wheat beers so much that he built his own wit beer brewery in 1965. The wit had been a very popular style of beer in Belgium up until 1956, but in that year the last of 30 Belgian wit breweries closed its doors. Pierre’s newly-resurrected wit became so popular that Celis sold his recipe and brewery to the Belgian and global brewing giant Interbrew (yeah, the same people that own Labatt’s here in Canada, and one of the largest brewing conglomerates in the world). Then, of all places, the brewing milkman moved to Austin, Texas, and built another wit brewery called Celis. In Austin, Celis tweaked and played with his Hoegaarden recipe and made yet another outstanding wit, as well as other marvellous brews, including a pale ale recipe written by none other than Clint Eastwood. Celis then sold this brewery to the Miller brewing group and moved back to Belgium to live a life of semi-retirement, where, at the age of 87, he still occasionally brews cave-aged beers. His most recent brew, the Grotten Brown, won a respected Beer of the Year award.
The wit, as a beer style, has a strange list of ingredients that seems more suited for Mr. Ed than beer, including raw wheat and oats, orange peel and spices. The beer’s cloudiness comes from the use of unmalted grains. This causes an unfermented protein haze that would make most light-beer drinkers cringe. This same unmalted wheat also results in the billowy, dense, rocky head and a malty firmness. The use of unmalted grains can be traced back to a time when farmers used whatever fermentable grains were available. Prior to the discovery of hops, herbs and spices were used to balance the sweetness and flavour of the malt. The spices were also included for their medicinal properties, or just for their intoxicating effect. The taste of the wit itself combines the luminous flavour of wheat, which gives off very slight plum and apple undertones, the citric flavours from the orange peel and the dry spiciness imparted by the coriander. Due to its unusual ingredients, the wit is an aromatic, light-but-balanced, refreshing beer choice.
Wits are five percent by volume, but in Belgium, lower alcohol versions are made for school children to drink at lunch instead of milk because the combination of vitamins from the yeast and the grains make it more nutritious. I know a beer at lunch during school would have made school more fun for me.
The Belgians have exclusive glassware for each of their beers, and Hoegaarden is no exception. The Hoegaarden glass is a very large, sturdy tumbler. Its shape illustrates the beer’s earthy farm origins. It has been my experience here in Calgary that one is likely to receive a wit beer bonus uncommon in Europe. Local establishments regularly provide a generous over-pour in the gargantuan-sized Hoegaarden glassware where the 50 centilitre fill line is four centimetres below the brim of the glass. The North American mentality, as always, is "fill it to the brim." Mmmm, more beer.
Look for all three wits at better stocked bars and liquor stores. |
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