Hoegaarden Brewery

Witbier: Hoegaarden The gentlest way into Belgian beer, and the bottle that brought its style back from the dead. The last local wheat beer brewery in the village of Hoegaarden closed in 1957, and a decade later a milkman named Pierre Celis set out to revive the style. It is brewed with wheat and spiced with coriander and orange peel, and at 4.9% it works as a summer pint as well as a tasting. Expect a hazy pour, a soft, bready body and a peppery citrus lift. It now belongs to AB InBev and turns up almost everywhere, which is exactly what makes it the witbier to measure the others against.