Think Global, Close Local

In 1966 a Belgian milkman named Pierre Celis was chatting to a group of friends. They reminisced about the style of beer that had once made their town, Hoegaarden famous. Celis was so enthused that he decided to abandon one form of white drink, milk, in favour of a more potable white beer. (Peter Celis shown right, picture from the Celis Brewery website)

White or wheat beer was once a speciality in the eastern part of Flemish Brabant. The region has rich soil, ideal for growing the barley and wheat needed for the pale and cloudy style known as white beer. There were - and still are - wheat beers in other countries, notably in Bavaria in southern Germany. What distinguished the wheat beers of Brabant was the use of spices and exotic fruit, brought to the Low Countries by sea-going traders.

Monks in a monastery in Hoegaarden brewed white beer and later the town became celebrated for the number of commercial producers who made the style. In 1750 there were 35 breweries in the town but in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the arrival of golden lager sent sales of white beer into steep decline.

The last white beer brewery in Hoegaarden closed in the 1950s and the style had disappeared by the time Celis and his friends had their discussion a decade later.

Celis was acquainted with the style. He lived next door to the last brewery in the town and had worked there on a part-time basis and was acquainted with the brewing methods. With financial help from his father, he bought some equipment from another closed brewery and built his De Kluis brewery: the name means "cloister" and it paid homage to the monks who had brewed in the town centuries earlier.

His white beer quickly took on cult status. Students in the nearby university town of Leuven took to it with enthusiasm and sales spread to the Netherlands and to France.

Its distinctive taste came from the use of ground coriander seeds and Curacao orange peel. The use of natural ingredients and the unfiltered nature of the beer appealed to the young "green" generation that avoided mass-produced beers.

The demand for the beer outstripped Celis's resources. Following a fire in 1985, he sought help from the giant Interbrew, who eventually took over the company. Celis went to the United States with his family, and launched a new brewery in Texas (label image, left).

Interbrew put its considerable muscle behind the Hoegaarden brand. Sales developed rapidly, and it became a familiar and substantial brand in Britain. The brewery was expanded and the site became a popular tourist attraction, with an attractive beer garden and a restaurant serving the beer alongside excellent dishes.

Interbrew likes to promote itself as "the world's local brewer". As well as producing vast quantities of Stella Artois, the group prided itself on supporting smaller brands that were true to their regions of origin.

But a conflict of interest developed that fatally flawed that outlook. Support for local beers started to take a back seat as Interbrew turned itself into a global brewer, with interests in the former Soviet bloc and the Americas. When it merged with Ambev of Brazil to form Inbev, it became the world's biggest brewing group.

British drinkers have seen the new face of Inbev with the closure of Boddingtons brewery in Manchester. Now Hoegaarden is to close and it is a sign of how far Inbev has moved from its roots, its support for local beers and its sensitivity to the language divide in Belgium that production of the white beer will be moved from a Flemish-speaking area to a French one: the beer will in future be brewed at the Jupiler lager factory. Pierre Celis, now back in Belgium, is said to be heart-broken. The workers will lose their livelihoods in an area with few other job opportunities, and an important tourist attraction will be destroyed.

What started life as a faithful recreation of a craft brewery that restored a lost beer style became one small cog in a vast production and marketing machine. Now the forces of globalism have destroyed Celis's work.

It is not a beer I shall drink again.