Excuses, excuses
Attempting to order a much-needed Friday pint of Hoegaarden after work last week, I was disappointed to be told that there was none to be had. ‘Seriously,’ the barman told me, ‘it’s not just us, there’s a worldwide shortage’. Now leaving aside the possibility that this might be TRUE, and that mighty beer behemoth InBev, formerly Interbrew has just run out of its cloudy wheaty goodness, one wonders about the high risk strategy the barman was employing. ‘Worldwide shortage’ presumably implies ‘ so no point trying somewhere else for your pint, better choose something else here’. But blowback misfire response = ‘so it’s about to run out everywhere and you should immediately leave in search of the last remaining pints in Edinburgh’. Anyway, I figured that explained why the last time I’d had Hoegaarden in there it had tasted manky, and opted for a glass of wine instead, before discovering rare as golddust bottles of lovely lovely ORVAL in the off license on the way home.
I can confirm this. As part of our beer changeover deal, we asked to put Hoegarden on. I got a call from the beer distributors last week saying that we won’t be getting it until August due to a chronic shortage.
OMG AUGUST!!! Luckily there’s plenty of much tastier Belgian beer available if one knows where to look.
I assume this is connected to the anticipated closure of the Hoegaarden brewery and the transfer of production to the InBev brewerey in Jupille. Apparently, this is dragging on and on because the Jupille brewers keep nixing the test batches of Hoegaarden beer.
If you’ve never been to the Hoegaarden brewery, do go while you still can. It feels more like a heritage site now than a working brewery, but soon it won’t even be that. Sigh.
Aaaah, this explains why this two very ardent Hoegaarden drinkers have been suffering withdrawals in London. We have had to (tragically, move on from our local in Aldgate to savour Erdinger not so far away in Farringdon – any end in site to this problem???????????
It came back on in the bar beside my office where this took place, and I enthusiastically ordered a pint, but when my companion joined me we were told that I had just had the last of the barrel as not enough had been ordered.
Keep hunting, Hoegaarden fans!
[…] here and […]
Hurrah, Hurrah, a small shipment of small kegs has appeared at the local and, for the moment, all is back to normal. Sorry folks, but until a guaranteed supply is available, I will have to keep this location a secret – anyone else had the bier blanche back on?
I have been enthusiastically drinking Shofferhofer, Erdinger in the interim. I trust we can all agree that the foul Kronenberg Blanc is UNACCEPTABLE as a substitute.
Yesterday I bought 5 cases of cans at Tesco Calais. They also have bottles.
This type of bullsht does not occur in America.
America, because you guys dont have real beer.
Please go back to your lite, and extra lite beer.. WTF? Lite beer?