Brouwerij Hoegaarden was begun in the village of Hoegaarden, known since the Middle Ages for its witbieren (white beers). By the 1950s the last of the old breweries had closed, and Pierre Celis, a local milkman, decided to revive the style, using the traditional ingredients of yeast, wheat, hops, coriander and dried Curaçao orange peel.
After a fire in 1985, as is traditional in Belgium, other brewers offered their help, including the largest brewer in the country, Interbrew (now InBev), to whom Celis ultimately sold Hoegaarden.
