Mitch, it sounds like our tastes are quite a bit alike. My favorite over the years is Big Beefsteak, hands down. However, taste being so subjective and varying from area to area, garden to garden and season to season, no one can tell you what will knock your socks off.

Brandy Boy is a hybrid that kinda fits your description, with a taste close to Brandywine but more productive and with less problems.

Neves Azorean Red is a very good candidate in my book, very strudy vines with many large tomatoes. Jet Star is another good tasting hybrid which is prolific and early, but not a big tomato. Most of mine were a little bigger than tennis balls last year. I also like Merced, but they have been discontinued and are getting hard to find. I think that Bonnies may have had some seed in reserve, I managed to find a couple of them with their brand on them this year. I am saving the seeds to try to keep this strain going in my garden as long as possible.

I could name more, but it would just be what pleases my palate. I am trying several new varieties this year as well, and I think that is what you will need continue to do to find the one (s) that you like best.

I can read the descriptions in the blurbs in the seed companies catalogues on line and hard copy and get an idea (coupled with what I have heard and perhaps read here) and get some idea if it sounds like something that I would want to check out further. For instance, several others here, as well as myself are growing Burpee's Porterhourse Beefsteak this year. I am not naive enough to believe everything that I read but sometime find that it is worth checking out further before a decision is made. There are several that I grew last year that are not in my garden this year.

Good luck with your quest.
Bill P.

Thanks for the reply, Bill. You mentioned several varieties I haven't tried. And you're right about subjectivity and local conditions. I tend to pour over catalogue descriptions looking for some code in the wording that will give me some objective reference to select varieties with. Invariably every description is hype to some degree but sometimes the descriptions provide a good clue to acid balance or other flavor profiles. I wish I could see a table of varieties rated by intensity of flavor components. With a large enough sample of tasters I'd bet some pattern would emerge. My search will continue for now based on my miserable catalogue descriptions and helpful hints.

If you mean intense as in acidy tasting, try Red Penna. If you want sweet full robust flavor, try Old Virginia. If you want "old tyme" intense flavor, try Aker's West Virginia. If you want a great tasting red, large & super productive, try Cuostralee. If you want a great red heart, try Wes or Russian 117. If you want a great red all-purpose tomato that you can slice, dice, sandwich, sauce or can, with a wonderful aroma when cut open, try Joe's Plum.

Hope this helps.

Korney19,

Thanks for the Red Penna tip. Never heard of that one. I could re-phrase my question and ask for favorite acidy, full, old timey flavored reds. I will be including a couple of the varieties you mentioned this fall.

Regards

You won't find anything better than Cuostralee... IMHO..

It tops my list for taste and productivity here in NC. It's the only one of my "must grow" varieties that has always been in my garden.

Lee

Thanks for the tip, Lee. Who do you get your seed from?

I have been keeping a list of tomatoes for next year, fiddling with it all the time, most recently, ten minutes ago, heh. Lee, your recommendations of Coustralee have made it a must try for me! Now if I can just whittle that list down to a total of eight by January. Or... find more space! Hmmm...