Jarod Opperman / The BulletinFrom left, Boneyard Beers Black 13, Incredible Pulp and Diablo Rojo.

Boneyard Beer has had an incredible year. Highlights included a number of special beer releases, collaborating with a Chinese brewery and reaching the 1,000th-batch mark at its northeast Bend production facility. And recently it announced the addition of a new beer to its year-round lineup — Incredible Pulp Blood Orange Extra Pale Ale.

Originally introduced in May, the specialty brew immediately proved enormously popular in the market. “When we first released it to distributors, it was tough to keep up with demand,” said Liz Mario, media contact for Boneyard. The initial batches were brewed on the smaller brewhouse located at Lake Place, the company’s original location. Subsequent batches scaled up at its production brewery off of Empire Avenue to meet demand.

The beer fits into the recent trend of citrus fruit-infused hoppy ales, joining the ranks of Deschutes Brewery’s Hop Slice, Worthy Brewing’s Kama Citrus IPA and Ballast Point Brewing’s Grapefruit Sculpin. For Incredible Pulp, brewmaster Tony Lawrence had multiple sources of inspiration.

“We didn’t have room in the brew schedule for an experimental beer until this year, and this was an idea that has been on the back burner for a couple years now,” Lawrence said. “Around the same time Incredible Pulp came out, we did a collaboration with Beavertown (Brewing) out of London on a big Double IPA called Bloody Notorious with Blood Orange.”

Bloody Notorious blended the recipes of Boneyard’s Notorious Triple IPA with Beavertown’s Bloody ’Ell, a blood orange IPA. The result was well received, though at over 9 percent alcohol by volume, not one to overindulge in at one time. Lawrence himself prefers lower-strength, sessionable beers, something of a paradox for the mastermind behind the popular high-alcohol creations of Suge Knite Imperial Stout and Notorious.

Accordingly, Incredible Pulp is only 6 percent alcohol. In formulating the recipe, the brewery sourced the blood orange puree from Oregon Fruit Products, which offers specialty aseptic products for brewers. Working with the purees is not new for Boneyard.

“We already experiment a good amount with (Oregon Fruit Products),” said Lawrence. “We have peach in one of our sour tanks, raspberries in Funky Bunch and raspberries and tart cherries in Femme Fatale.”

They use 5 pounds of blood orange puree per barrel (31 gallons) of beer. That is comparable to adding roughly 2 teaspoons of frozen orange juice concentrate to a pint of beer (a fun experiment to try at home). To review it, I procured a crowler (32-ounce can) from Boneyard’s tasting room, which cost only $5.

Incredible Pulp is full of bright, orange aromas, juicy with ample notes of bitter orange peel and marmalade. The big punch of citrus is reminiscent of the orange oil you get from the zest. The flavor is full of juicy pulp and prominent bitter peel, along with the gamut of flavors from the fruit — pith, zest and spicy bitterness similar to grapefruit juice. Herbal and spicy hops complement the orange, and the malt base is crisp, light and showcases the citrus.

The pale golden orange color is fitting for an ale that exhibits this level of juiciness. Boneyard fans will not be disappointed, as the signature hoppiness is present and plays well with the blood orange, but at the same time this beer falls out of the usual comfort zone of the brewery and appeals to an audience not simply seeking hops. Boneyard squeezes out an impressive range of aroma and flavor from the fruit to infuse into this beer.

What’s next for Boneyard for the rest of the year?

“We are constantly brewing small batch specialty one-offs,” Mario said, “and we have some winter warmers coming out.” Plans include Raspberry Tart, Smoked Porter, Imperial Stout and Barleywine. The first of its seasonal lineup is already available — Backbone Chocolate Espresso Stout, brewed with locally sourced cold-brew coffee from Bend’s Backporch Coffee Roasters.

Also watch out for the sour beers coming out of the brewery’s new sour program. Currently on tap at the tasting room is Sour G, Boneyard’s first-ever kettle-soured ale infused with ginger.

Adding Incredible Pulp as a regular, year-round offering is no small feat for the brewery best known for RPM IPA, one of the best-selling IPAs in the state, accounting for 93 percent of its sales at one point. It’s a bold move in an already strong year for Boneyard, and a welcome addition to its lineup.

— Jon Abernathy is a local beer blogger and brew aficionado. His column appears in GO! every other week.