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Flemish Fox Preserves Brewing Heritage

Help us preserve historically significant brewing equipment that was used to revive witbier

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Flemish Fox Preserves Brewing Heritage

Flemish Fox Preserves Brewing Heritage

Flemish Fox Preserves Brewing Heritage

Flemish Fox Preserves Brewing Heritage

Flemish Fox Preserves Brewing Heritage

Help us preserve historically significant brewing equipment that was used to revive witbier

Help us preserve historically significant brewing equipment that was used to revive witbier

Help us preserve historically significant brewing equipment that was used to revive witbier

Help us preserve historically significant brewing equipment that was used to revive witbier

Christine Celis
Christine Celis
Christine Celis
Christine Celis
1 Campaign |
Austin, United States
$12,660 USD 58 backers
5% of $252,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

Flemish Fox Brewery & Craftworks, is a new brewery in Austin, Texas founded by Christine Celis, that will brew Belgian-style beers and ales for craft beer lovers. The brewery builds on the Celis family legacy, brewing the original witbier that Pierre Celis made in Hoegaarden as well as other award-winning craft beer recipes.

We are embarking on an important fundraising campaign to save historically significant brewing equipment and techniques.

You have an opportunity to make a mark on the craft beer industry with your contribution. Your gift will help us to relocate Pierre Celis’ original brewing equipment from Hoegaarden, Belgium to Austin, Texas.


Preserving an Important Beer Style

Hoegaarden, Belgium is the birthplace of Belgian witbier, which has been brewed in the village since 1445. The village has been synonymous with this aromatic, cloudy, witbier for centuries. In 1955 the last brewery in Hoegaarden that made witbier, Brasserie Louis Tomsin, closed for good when the brewer retired. Unfathomably, the region’s treasured witbier died with it.

Fortunately, that isn’t the end of the story. As the town and beer lovers across the country grieved for its loss, Pierre Celis, who had learned to make witbier at neighboring Tomsin, quietly began making home brew versions of it in 1965. On March 13, 1966, Celis singlehandedly revived the Hoegaarden witbier style in his brewery, Brouwerij De Kluis. Over the years, the cloudy witbier made with wheat, hops, coriander, and orange peel became world renowned and many breweries began making similar styles.

Pierre Celis later went on to found Celis Brewery in Austin, Texas, in 1992 and continued to make witbier.

The brewing equipment used to resurrect the style of beer remained in the original farmhouse in Belgium where he first brewed his witbier. The historic, weathered open mash tun, two copper kettles, an open fermenter, heat exchanger, and coolship hasn’t been used since 1979. Like the original witbier, it too could die.

We can save this extraordinary piece of brewing heritage dating back to the 1900s. Just as her father rescued witbier from extinction, Christine Celis is determined to save his legacy by bringing the original brewing equipment to install and display in the new Flemish Fox Brewery in Austin, Texas.

We need your help to preserve brewing heritage. 


A Monumental Task

Moving the 2-toncast-iron open mash tun and copper brew kettles from the brewery in Hoegaarden to Austin is a monumental task. The extensive process to reclaim the brew kettles involved chiseling it free from the brick and concrete in which it is encased with jackhammers. The roof and walls of the brewery had to be removed to allow space to pull out the brewing equipment using a massive construction crane. The very building itself had to be reinforced to allow it to sustain this excavation. The walls and roof will of course will have to be repaired as well.

We will restore the equipment with curative sandblasting processes and repair work. Following restoration, the copper kettles, mash tun and open fermenter will be packed in custom-made protective wooden crates to be shipped across the Atlantic to Texas.

It’s a project of historic importance not seen before in the village of Hoegaarden. The streets were blocked to allow for enormous trucks to transport the brewing equipment to the harbor for its long ocean voyage to the Port of Houston. Pierre Celis’ equipment will retrace the brewing journey that he took from Belgium to Texas.


A Hefty Price

The extensive project comes with a hefty price tag. It will cost $252,000 to save this equipment and install it in working order in the museum at Flemish Fox Brewery & Craftworks.  The costs involved include: 

  • Excavation of equipment - $25,000
  • Rental of the crane and trucks - $27,000
  • Storage - $5,000
  • Shipping over seas and by road - $25,000
  • Austin building retrofit - $150,000 
  • New bottling line - $15,000  
  • Foeders - $20,000  


You can Help Save a Brewing Legacy

Christine Celis isn’t undertaking this colossally difficult and expensive project to simply put the celebrated brew kettles in a museum. The mash tun and brew kettles will be refurbished and be put back into commission on special occasions at the new Flemish Fox Brewery to once again brew authentic beers in the true style that Pierre Celis revived in the village Hoegaarden in 1965.

You can have a hand in preserving the heritage of witbier’s brewing origins, and bring Belgian legacy to Texas. Your generous contribution will not only make sure historically significant equipment is preserved, but the very brewing techniques that are only feasible with this kind of equipment are likewise preserved.

With the equipment, Christine Celis will also bring the original yeast and brewing methodologies perfected in the early days in Hoegaarden to once again revive witbier in Austin for all to enjoy. This is a process rarely used outside of Belgium in modern brewing to continue a beloved style that deserves to be saved.

Flemish Fox Brewery will brew the original Belgian recipes from Pierre Celis in the restored equipment on special occasions. The brewery will make Belgian ales, as well as other Pierre Celis recipes that were never produced, in gleaming new state of the art brewing equipment on an ongoing basis.

Each contributor of $200 or more will be invited to brew in the original open mash tun, copper kettles, and fermenters, manually stirring the mash with wooden paddles. You will experience the equipment and the process of making the original Belgian style witbier just the way Pierre Celis did it.


Your Contribution Matters

We greatly appreciate your support and will reward all contributions with unique recognition items and experiences.  You not only have an opportunity to preserve brewing heritage, but you can also earn a hands-on experience of brewing beer in this equipment with a Master Brewer. We will have visiting Master Brewers from renowned craft breweries around the world for each session. 

Thank you for your help in preserving brewing heritage and ensuring the rebirth of Pierre Celis’ legacy. 


Flemish Fox in the News

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/lifestyles/food-cooking/celis-legacy-will-love-on-in-daughters-flemish-fox/nqhmp/

http://www.texasmonthly.com/eat-my-words/the-fl...  


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Choose your Perk

Flemish Fox Supporter

$10 USD
• Receive a short video “Thank you” from Christine herself!
0 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Craft beer lover

$25 USD
• Receive a handwritten thank you from Christine Celis • Invitation to the pre-opening party
11 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Craft Beer Enthusiast

$75 USD
• Receive a handwritten thank you letter from Christine Celis • A commemorative Flemish Fox keychain bottle opener • Invitation to the pre-opening party
3 out of 2500 of claimed
Ships worldwide.

Apprentice Brewer

$200 USD
• Receive a handwritten thank you letter from Christine Celis • A commemorative Flemish Fox keychain bottle opener • Brew classes with the Masters! Join us twice a year and learn about the art of brewing with the authentic equipment. • 1 case of Flemish Fox beer each month for a year • Invitation to the pre-opening party
29 out of 1000 of claimed

Brewer

$1,000 USD
• Receive a handwritten thank you letter from Christine Celis • Brew classes with the Masters! Join us twice a year and learn about the art of brewing with the authentic equipment. • A commemorative Flemish Fox t-shirt and keychain bottle opener • 1 case of Flemish Fox beer each month for a year • Invitation to the pre-opening party • Your name engraved on the tiles that will be coming from the original brewery and installed in the Flemish Fox brewery
4 out of 100 of claimed
Ships worldwide.

Orde van de Vroentestraat

$2,500 USD
• Receive a handwritten thank you letter from Christine Celis • A commemorative Flemish Fox t-shirt and keychain bottle opener • Invitation to the pre-opening party • As a member of the “Orde van de Vroentestraat” your full name, state or country will be burned onto the wooden beams around the mash tun • One case of free beer with every month (for 1 year, with your “Orde van de Vroentestraat” card) • Brew with us twice a year on the original equipment from Belgium
0 out of 50 of claimed
Ships worldwide.

Master Brewer

$5,000 USD
• Commemorative Flemish Fox t-shirt and keychain bottle opener • Invitation to the pre-opening party • As a member of the “Orde van de Vroentestraat” your name will be burned onto the wooden beams around the mash tun • Case of free beer every month (for 1 year) • Brew with us twice a year on the original equipment from Belgium • A year subscription to receive our new releases and seasonal brews • A one-time collaboration with our brewers to create a unique “small batch” beer
Estimated Shipping
December 2016
0 out of 20 of claimed
Ships worldwide.

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