The History of Mandarin Madness
The Mandarin Orange Hefeweizen

The Sonoran Brewing Company has always listened to the it's customers. In mid 2005, we were approached by the Papago Brewing Company, and asked if we could design a Mandarin Hefe, similar to a well selling beer that was brewed by another brewery that had recently gone out of business. We didn't want to copy what others have done, so we captured their basic flavor profile and took it even further. What started out as a request to reproduce a fairly flavorless beer, with very little to no aroma, grew to become our Mandarin Madness. Not only did we give our brew an instant and distinct orange fragrance and flavor, like biting into a fresh picked Mandarin Orange, we followed it with a smooth hint of Vanilla Bean that lingers to your delight. This beer has Attitude, that overwhelms your senses! It is nothing like the beer we were originally asked to design, it's much better.

Being that Papago made the original request for this beer, they marketed it as their Papago Orange Blossom Hefe and it has grown to become one of their best selling brews. Our label has gone through several different revisions. Our very first label was never promoted, even though it had a very descriptive name Mandarin Madness. We thought the original artwork was not that appealing and quickly changed the name. C.I.A., the Citrus Infused Ale was our attempt to rebrand the mandarin hefe. A play on the US Government's Central Intelligence Agency, our C.I.A. logo had many of the same characteristics as the Government's logo. They were both circular with a shield in the center. Like the Government's, ours also included our name flowing around the inside perimeter of the circle. Their logo has a screaming eagle with several round circles separating it from the shield. We incorporated our Phoenix logo in place of the eagle and orange replacing the small circles, just to continue the orange theme of the brew.

Subsequent talks with our Distributor, and several of our customers, resulted in the reconsideration of the Mandarin Madness name, which was far more descriptive. Still disappointed with the original artwork, we tried something different, something simple. The Mad Orange was born.

Who knows what may come next for this brew?

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