As part of American Craft Beer Week, our local brewery (Swamp Head) and Cigar City from Tampa had a “taproom takover” (I’d call it a “tasting room exchange”, but that’s not as alliterative). So we got our choice of eight CCB beers on tap.

The smallish tasting room was already packed at 5:00pm, so we got a pint of Florida Cracker Wheat Ale, and a growler of Table Saison.  It took me nearly 15 minute to get those, and I almost changed my order halfway through to add another couple of growlers.  I should have done that, because by the time I came back to get more growlers, the crowd was much worse, and three of the kegs blew while I was waiting to get a couple growlers, including both the beers I wanted.  So I had to take my third and fourth choices (Jose Marti Porter and Maduro Brown Ale).

Luckily, I’ve never had a bad beer from Cigar City, and these were no exception.  The Cracker Wheat Ale was a great cloudy hefeweizen, with just enough spice and citrus to make it interesting.  The Jose Marti was inky and intense, with a little sweetness and not too smoky.  The Maduro was a great brown ale, with a big malt and lot of subtlety to match it (and I found some 12 oz. bottles at Tipple’s, so we can get more).  The Table Saison was not as sour and bold as their Sea Bass, but a more mainstream farmhouse, very light but with a definite sourness, almost like a kolsch.

We’re going to round out Craft Beer Week with Victory‘s V-12, which should be muscular enough to go well with chili.