My latest article for The Bulletin came out last week, I write about the differences subtle variations to beer recipes can make, and had a chance to highlight a couple of beers from Bridge 99 Brewery. Bridge 99 offers both its Headwaters Hefeweizen and (currently) Blood Orange Hefeweizen, which is the same recipe only with blood orange puree added. Naturally I had to sample both beers side by side!

Stats on the beers are identical, with 5% alcohol by volume and 13 IBUs from Perle hops. It’s a great opportunity to study the difference a single ingredient can make, so I picked up a crowler of each beer to try side by side and compare results. I reached out for additional details.

“The recipes are the same, and we put in about two gallons of blood orange puree per barrel,” owner and brewer Trever Hawman said via email. (A barrel is 31 gallons.) The fruit is added to the brite tank after primary fermentation is complete, he said.

It’s a fun experiment, tasting how ingredients or processes (or both) can change a beer. Of course you’ll have to read the article to see my conclusions on the two from Bridge 99.