Cali Squeeze Review: Juicy Hefe Bursting With Blood Oranges

Cali Squeeze might be a hefeweizen, but it stands out from its style with the vibrant fruity flavor of oranges. Made with real fruit, the beer offers a delicious balance between oranges and wheat while retaining the classic hefe style.

This wheat-based fruity beer is the ideal choice for your summer drinking and hanging out with friends. Before you take your first orangey sip, check out our detailed review below to know what to expect and how to pair the beer. 

Cali Squeeze Stats

Country	United States
Brand	Firestone Walker Brewing Co
Style	Hefeweizen
Taste	Orange, wheat
Body	Medium Body
ABV	5 percent
Flavors & Aromas	Wheat, bread, orange, tart, caramel, Berry
Serving Temperature	45 – 50 degrees Fahrenheit

Tasting Notes

Cali Squeeze Review 

• Appearance: 8/10
• Aroma: 8/10
• Mouthfeel: 7.5/10
• Flavor: 8/10

This is a hefeweizen made by Firestone Walker Brewing. The wheat beer features an alcohol content of 5 percent, and despite the tarty orange flavor, it sticks to its style excellently. It pours a hazy orange color and offers a medium body that is consistent with the hefeweizen style.

The beer has aromas and flavors of orange, wheat, bread, caramel, and some berry esters, with a great balance between wheat, bready malts, hoppy notes, and real orange fruit. It is a juicy and well-carbonated beer that will impress you with its balanced taste. You can pair it with different fruity desserts, spicy foods, and juicy, meaty meals.

Serve the fruity hefeweizen in a Weizen glass that has a narrow bottom and a wide top. The unique shape allows it to provide support to the fluffy head and release the aroma. A pint glass is a good alternative. The ideal serving temperature is from 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. 

– Appearance 

On the pour, the orange hefeweizen has a ruby to golden orange color that is showcased perfectly by a Weizen glass. The beer has a cloudy, hazy appearance that showcases the unfiltered malts. You might also notice the light carbonation bubbles floating to the top.

Atop the beer is a soapy white head up to one finger high, and it offers decent retention. Slowly, it dissipates into the beer and leaves sudsy lacing against the glass. 

– Aroma 

The beer has a fantastic aroma like its appearance, with a slightly overwhelming scent of oranges. The orange is the first thing that you smell when you pour it, but as you bring it to your nose, you get other flavor notes. Despite having a lot of oranges, it is pleasant and not off-putting.

It still smells like a wheat beer, with some wheat aroma notes on the nose and a bit of white bread crust. The wheat aroma pushes behind the pleasant orange aroma. 

– Mouthfeel 

When drinking the hefeweizen, you get a medium mouthfeel that tends toward full. The first thing you feel is a chewy and medium body on your tongue that is consistent with the wheat base of the beer. At the end of the flavor, the beer becomes flat and disappears.

There is barely any aftertaste in the beer, although it finishes tart and wheaty. The mouthfeel has no alcohol warming, and the beer is highly drinkable.

– Flavor 

The flavor of the Blood Orange follows the aroma very closely, with a dominating taste of orange and a strong backbone of wheat that remains prominent throughout the flavor. The first thing that you taste is the bread, as it feels like you have your mouth full. It is mostly a flavor of white bread crust, as seen in the aroma. 

The wheat shines through the white bread flavor, and you get a subtle flavor of orange from the beginning. In the middle of the palate, the orange pops out and remains the main flavor until the end of the swallow. There’s a very slight bitterness from the hops towards the end of the flavor, and you will taste a few berry esters. 

In general, the beer has an interesting and complex flavor for a wheat beer, offering you layers of bread, caramel, and wheat that balance out with the dominant orange, berry, and slight hops.

Food Pairings

The fruity hefeweizen goes great with a wide range of foods, as you can decide to complement the wheat backbone or the orange flavor. It goes great with generic foods like pizza, salad, smoked pork, and seafood. If you want to go for German foods that pair well with a hefeweizen, try out the apple strudel and weisswurst.

Other foods you can try out include barbecued foods, smoked meat, beets, stroganoff, lobster and avocado salad, cedar smoked salmon or skewered shrimp on rosemary branches. Pair the fruitiness of the beer with a salad topped with fruity dressings, light white meat, and herbal and spicy foods.

If you want to enjoy a dessert with beer, try out a lemon risotto, orange crepes, strawberry and cream, or a carrot cake. For cheese, the beer goes great with goat cheese, especially when it’s with smashed beets. 

Ingredients 

The ingredients used to make the Blood Orange Hefeweizen include malts, hops, yeast, and water. The main ingredient is the real orange that was used to brew this beer. With this, the tart orange flavor in the beer does not taste artificial. 

The malt list includes 2-row malts, white wheat, cara-pils, torrified wheat, and rice hulls. This gives it the wheat and caramel backbone. It is also fermented using 100 percent stainless steel. 

Nutrition Facts 

The hefeweizen features an alcohol content of 5 percent, while the IBU is 15. The alcohol is a moderate level for the beer style, with no unpleasant warming or quick tipsiness. With the low IBU, there is barely any bitterness except for when the hops peek a little toward the end. 

The exact nutrition facts of this beer are unknown. But, keep in mind that it is a high carbs alcoholic beverage, making it unsuitable for those on a keto diet. It is also not a gluten-free beer. 

History 

Blood Orange is a creation of Firestone Walker Brewing Company, one of the leading breweries in the USA. The beer was released in 2017 and was first made by SLO Brewing. Then Firestone Walker acquired the beer in 2021 and has been making it since then. The beers stand out for having a hefeweizen style but being made with real fruit juice like oranges.

Aside from this, the other beers in the series include Lemon Chill and Tangerine Daze. The beers also have a seltzer version for those that don’t drink beer. The beer is made with California Sunshine, which means that it is brewed with solar power. 

Conclusion

From the juicy orange flavor to the soft and sticky hefeweizen body, there’s a lot that you can enjoy from the moment you sip this beer.

Here’s a rundown of what our review had to say:

• This is a hefeweizen with a 5 percent alcohol content.
• The beer has flavors and aromas of orange, wheat, white bread crust, caramel, and berry.
• It is made with malts, hops, yeast, water, and real orange fruit.
• Serve the beer in a Weizen glass or even a pint glass if you don’t have the former, at 45 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Pair the beer with smoked meats, seafood, salads with a fruity dressing, pizza, light white meats, smashed beets with goat cheese, and orange sorbet.

You can easily purchase this beer as a standalone or with others in the series in a variety pack. The beer is sold at liquor stores and supermarkets, or you can order it online and get it delivered straight to your home.