Brandywine is very confusing. The one that most serious gardeners consider the "true" Brandywine is the one sometimes sold as Brandywine Sudduth or sometimes known among seed collectors as the Quisenberry Brandywine. That's the one I generally grow. When you order seed of Brandywine Sudduth, you may or may not get seed that is true to type. A preferred source for Sudduth would be Johnny's Selected Seeds because their seed consistently produces a true to type plant and tomato that most resembles Sudduth.

In addition, True Black Brandywine (the one from seed originally saved by William Woys Weaver's dad) is almost as good, although many serious tomato hobbyists don't consider it a true Brandywine. To me, TBB's flavor is the perfect blend of traditional Brandywine flavor and black tomato flavor, and I like eating it despite the disputes about its history or whether it is a Brandywine or not.

Years ago, in an effort to clear up some of the confusion about what is Brandywine versus what is not Brandywine, Craig LeHoullier wrote out the history of Brandywine, and I don't know of anyone who knows more about Brandywine than he does. He went year by year through the Seed Saver's Exchange members listings and pulled out applicable data to include, but that data stopped in 2000 so, while it addressed one variety known as Black Brandywine, it doesn't directly address the True Black Brandywine variety which I first found in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog around 6-8 years ago.

Mike at Victory Seeds published Craig's Brandywine history on his website. Let me see if I can find it and link it.

One year I wanted to compare a bunch of the different Brandywines (this was long before I even found True Black Brandywine) so I grew them all together in the same year, and Brandywine Sudduth's was far superior to the others, at least according to my taste buds. That is why I grow it. Jay has grown a lot more of the other Brandywine types, like Glick's and Cowlick, than I have.

Nowadays, there's also some outstanding breeding work being done where some breeders, including hobbyist breeders, are crossing Brandywine with other heirlooms to get the Brandywine flavor with the higher production of some other heirloom varieties. In that group, I love Keith Mueller's variety called Gary 'O Sena, which is from a cross of Brandywine and Cherokee Purple. Nowadays, there's some years that I don't grow Brandywine Sudduth, and there's some years that I don't grow True Black Brandywine, but there is never a year when I don't grow Gary 'O Sena. One advantage of Gary 'O Sena is that it produces ripe fruit in my garden in as little as about 65-68 days, versus 80+ days for most Brandywine types.

Even Burpee has gotten into the act with Brandy Boy. I cannot remember if they ever directly stated that Brandywine was used in the breeding of Brandy Boy, but their choice of Brandy Boy as a name implies to me that Brandywine likely was used to breed Brandy Boy, or at least they want us to think it was. Brandy Boy produces about 5 times as many fruit per plant in my garden as Brandywine Sudduth does, but its flavor is not quite as good as Sudduth's. Still, if you'd never had a Sudduth Brandywine, you might think Brandy Boy was the best tomato you've ever tasted.

Without exception, every single person to whom I've ever given a Sudduth Brandywine has instantly declared it the best tomato they've ever eaten, and I find that interesting since tomato flavor is subjective and we all have taste buds that perceive flavor differently. For whatever reason, all those taste buds love Sudduth.

This year I grew Sudduth, 2 plants, and they produced easily 40-50 fruit per plant or more before the heat shut them down. That, by the way, is the main problem with Brandywine Sudduth (and most other plants that have Brandywine in their name or breeding heritage)----they either are very slow to begin flowering in spring so cannot set many fruit before our temperatures get hot enough to shut them down, or they start early some years but start dropping blossoms due to heat much earlier than other varieties do. I guess they really don't care for our heat most years.

I think that seed source is very important with most heirloom types, but even more so with Brandywine. It seems to me there is a lot of crossed Brandywine seed being sold as Brandywine/Brandywine Sudduth and then when you grow them, the fruits from those plants are not at all as good as the original Sudduth, so buying your seed from someone like Victory Seed or Johnny's Selected Seed can make a real difference because their seed is widely believed to be true-to-type.
Hope this helps,

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: A Brandywine History