So we had a meeting this morning to introduce a Belgian beer portfolio that we picked up so I figured it would be just a standard type of meeting introducing them. I get there to find out that it is Christine Celis who runs the company and she is there to talk to us about them and about the history of her family. For those of you that don't know Pierre Celis (her father) was the one who pretty much resurrected the Belgian Wit style with the Hoegaarden brewery. When the brewery burnt down in the 80s INBEV offered them a loan to build it back up. Eventual INBEV used that loan to strong arm them into making the beer into swill so they could sell it to the masses. They sold it off then moved to Austin and opened Celis Brewery with the original Hoegaarden recipe. Then yet again corporate brewing came in and forced them out killing off the brand in fears of it hurting Miller Lite sales.
Miller just put the name and recipes up on the auction block where she bought them back and will be re-opening the true Celis brewery very soon. True recipe and the true yeast (which she told me is not what WL/Wyeast have as the celis strain.) The real strain is on some slides back in Belgium where I told her she's got to bring it back to the states in a sock like her pops.
I geeked out with her for a bit asking stuff about pretty much her family history, brewing, whatever, It was pretty pretty cool.
