Thu 30 August 2007; 241

The summer of wheat

12:59 Thu 30 August 2007; 241 | by Ryan | in uncategorized

This has been the summer of wheat . . . beer that is. The number of breweries marketing wheat beer, at least in Ontario, Canada has exploded.

Molson Coors introduced Rickards White earlier this year and recently announced its availability in bottles.

PC released PC Blanche brewed by White Water Brewery a.k.a. Brick Brewing Co Limited. And Brick later announced Waterloo Wheat brewed by — according to the label — Waterloo Brewing Company a.k.a. Brick.

Last weekend, I saw that Mill Street introduced its Wit Bier.

Even the Heuther Hotel released a wheat beer this summer.

It’s all part of the growth of wheat beer on this continent. Numbers from the Beer Institute show the growing use of wheat by brewers in the USA.

histogram graph chart showing mass of wheat used in brewing in USA annually

Pierre Celis brought white beer back to Hoegaarden, Belgium, in 1966 when he opened Brouwerij Celis and started brewing Oud Hoegaards Bier. In 1978 he changed the name of the brewery to Brouwerij De Kluis, which had a fire in 1985 and got less insurance money than required to rebuild. This led to the the part owners of the brewery selling to Artois which merged with Piedboeul to become Interbrew which merged with Ambev in 2004 to become Inbev. Celis later also sold his share to Artois.

He opened a Celis Brewery in Austin, Texas and made the first batch of Celis White on March 19, 1992. This was the beginning of wheat beers growing popularity in North America.

Brick would later brew Celis White under licence, bringing the beer to Ontario.

Coors has a wheat beer called Blue Moon whose production moved to Montreal in spring 2005 after the merger with Molson. An article in the Montreal Gazette suggested that Molson was brewing the one beer marketed as Blue Moon in the USA and as Rickards Original White in Canada.

Which shows how much of beer is just marketing.