Sunday Night Suds - Hoegaarden Wit Blanche

This week's Sunday Night Suds looks at Hoegaarden Wit Blanche (aka Original White Beer) - a self described "original Belgian wheat beer."

Hoegaarden and I have an interesting history and this is technically not the first time that I have reviewed this beer for a Sunday Night Suds. A number of years ago, my wife and I went out for dinner and this was on the restaurant's beer menu. Since the steakhouse was under hashgacha, I assumed that this beer was fine and ordered it with my dinner.

Within a day or two I received an email from someone asking me who gave the hashgacha on the Hoegaarden. I started doing the research and could not find any kasruth agency which certified the brew at the time. As the beer is flavored and therefore exempt from the general chazakah, I did not buy any more Hoegaarden as there was no way to know at the time that beer was kosher.

Fast forward to winter 2011-2012. I received another email from a reader who mentioned to me that he had seen Hoegaarden with hashgacha in Israel. After some emailing and digging I was led o the KF who provided me with an LOC for Hoegaarden as well as many other European beers. These were incorporated in the "special European section" of the most recent kosher beers list (found here http://kosherbeers.blogspot.com/2012/03/purim-5772march-2012-updated-kosher.html).

So what does the Hoegaarden taste like? It is a classic European witbier which pours a medium golden color and is quite cloudy. The beer has some cloves/coriander tones but it is not stifling. There are little hops to be found in the brew, which is typical to the style. Overall, it is a refreshing, light (but not in the low calorie sense) brew, well suited for summer.

Hoegaarden Wit Blanche (aka Original White Beer) is under the Kosher Supervision of the Kosher Federation (London). If you would like to see a copy of the LOC, please email me and I will forward it to you. To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about Hoegaarden Wit Blanche, please follow this link http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/99/80728.

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver. If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable).

Finally, if you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click http://www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com/ to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!