Blood Orange Brew Free! Or Die IPA From 21st Amendment Brewing

The self-proclaimed pioneers of the fruit beer movement, 21st Amendment Brewing, has now canned its second fruit beer with its new year-round beer Blood Orange Brew Free! Or Die IPA. Back in the year 2000, 21A founders Nico Freccia and Shaun O’Sullivan brewed its popular Hell or High Watermelon Wheat. Now 17 years later the brewery has recently launched its second fruit beer.

During the past few years many breweries have joined the blood orange beer craze. With Blood Orange Brew Free! Or Die IPA, 21A offers a line extension of its flagship Brew Free! Or Die IPA. From using this regular West Coast IPA as the beer’s base, 21A then added 100% fresh blood orange puree to the beer that creates a strong citrus presence in both the aroma and taste.

“We had resisted coming out with another fruit beer for a while now, but the fact is, we helped pioneer this style when we first started brewing Hell or High Watermelon Wheat almost 17 years ago at our San Francisco brewpub, and we do it really well,” stated Freccia in a release. “We ultimately decided to have a little fun with our flagship IPA because we knew we could do it right.”

“We’ve been developing this recipe for almost a year,” stated O’Sullivan in a release. “Blood oranges were a totally new ingredient for us, and it was a lot of fun to play around with different approaches of where to add it into the process, and how much.” The result? A tangy, thirst-quenching, IPA with distinct flavors. “We want craft beer drinkers to understand that while this is a new and totally different beer, it has a great lineage, but when you crack open that can and get that first whiff of blood orange and hops… Oh man, it’s a thing of beauty.”

“While we captured the essence and aroma of blood orange, the beer undergoes a lot of late hopping,” explained O’Sullivan in the release. “Just to give you an example, at the end of the boil we add over 30 pounds of Citra hops into the whirlpool. In layman’s terms, that’s a LOT of fricking hops!”

Blood Orange Brew Free! Or Die IPA Stats:
Malts: Two-Row Pale, Munich, Caramalt
Hops: CTZ (Bittering), Centennial & Citra (Flavoring) and Citra, Mosaic, and Chinook (Dry Hopping)
Yeast: Top Fermenting Ale Yeast
Color: Deep Gold
IBUs: 70
ABV: 7.0%
Special Ingredient: 100% Fresh Blood Orange Puree

Six packs and draft will be available in all 21A distribution markets beginning this month.