Last Saturday, Texas and the world lost one of our most beloved craft beer icons. Pierre Celis, milkman-turned-world-famous brewer, succumbed to cancer at the age of 86. He was a huge influence on many of our local brewers through his Celis Brewery in Austin in the 1990s.
Celis is credited with saving the Belgian Wit style of beer when the last brewery in his hometown of Hoegaarden, Belgium, shut down. A Wit is an unfiltered wheat beer spiced with coriander and dried Curacao orange peel. It's exotic and yet approachable for the masses.
His first brewery was named after his hometown, and Hoegaarden Witbier can still be found on a lot of store shelves and in pubs. Long ago, it was purchased by the forerunner of today's mega-brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev. It's still a very good beer, though not what it once was.
Later in life, Celis moved at least part time to Austin from Belgium. Kevin Brand, owner and brewer at (512) Brewing in Austin, who was mentored by Celis in the early days of his brewery, recalled Celis' motivation for opening a brewery in the United States.
“During World War II, his town of Hoegaarden was evidently a location for a field hospital. His interactions with the Americans and his account that the troops liberated his town inspired him to find a way to give back,” Brand says.
So Celis, along with his daughter and son-in-law, opened his eponymous brewery and began brewing Celis White along with a Grand Cru, Pale Bock, Raspberry, Dubbel and Pale Rider, which was made for Clint Eastwood.
Brock Wagner, founder of Saint Arnold, was friendly with Celis through the years and had much in common, having spent four years in Belgium in his youth. He says of Celis, “Pierre helped begin the process of making beer drinkers in Texas aware of the flavor and diversity that exists in the world of beer.”
I certainly recall my first sip of the White on my parents' back porch in Austin in the late '90s. It immediately changed my perception of what beer can be and turned me into a craft-beer lover.
Sadly, Celis' partners sold out to Miller, which eventually shut down the brewery. Bobby Mason, owner of Michigan Brewing, was looking for equipment and purchased the Celis Brewery and moved it to Webberville, Mich., outside of Lansing. The Celis brands were also for sale, and Mason purchased those as well. Celis, along with his brewing engineer Jean Luc Suys, visited the brewery in 2002 a few times and made sure they were brewing it right. Mason said that “he helped a lot and then we started taking awards with it.” Mason later visited Celis in Belgium and the two spent a couple of weeks touring breweries.
You can still find Celis beers at a few locations in town, but it can be hit-or-miss. Mason is still bringing some of the equipment online and will be expanding capacity so more of the beer can flow into Texas. He says the only difference from the original recipe is that they use local wheat instead of Texas wheat.
Jason Davis, head brewer at Freetail Brewing, who worked at the Celis Brewery from 1998-2000, says that he “was always friendly with everyone at the brewery — from the guys palletizing cases on the line to the folks culturing yeast in the lab.”
“He was a genuinely nice, generous man. I remember when he brought the trial version of his Grottenbier to share with us there — I felt like an honored guest working in his brewery!”
That's a fine tribute to man who was remembered by everyone I talked to as uncommonly generous with his time and counsel.
Cheers, Pierre.
