When Cigar City Brewing decided to host their first fruit beer only event many years ago, heads turned and wondered why they would do this. Then it was announced that New Glarus beers from Wisconsin and New Belgium beers from Colorado would be brought in for the event. Tickets were sold, beers were poured, and a great time was had for two years. Then, when Cigar City announced that they were expanding the brewery and looking into other projects, Fruit in the Room was put on hold.
Late in 2013, it was announced that Fruit in the Room would return like a glorious phoenix to the Tampa Bay area with one difference: this year the Cigar City Brewpub of Northdale would host the event. Some folks wondered how Cigar City would pull off the event, but any naysayers were quickly silenced when ticket sales were capped and a maximum number of attendees was set.
Then the night of the event came. While many folks came to the brewpub unsure what to expect, they quickly found the lay of the land and set off in search of rare and unique CCB fare like Mixed Berry Hunahpu and Life is Like Barrel-aged Cherry stout. After Life is Like came and went, there were still dozens of fruit beer variants to try.
Some beers had many different ingredients in the mix, like Rum French Oak Vanilla Cherry American Porter while some were up front and simple like Sour Lemon IPA. Some beers were in heavy demand, like the aforementioned Mixed Berry Hunahpu and Life is Like, but the best part of this event were the many beers that should have been in high demand lasted most of the night.
Beers of the night included Rum White Oak Pineapple IPA (think Pina Colada meets citrusy IPA), Guanabana Guava Sour (think lovely fruit presence and lactobacillus sour tartness coexisting), and Rum Barrel-aged Red D’or from 7venth Sun (rum raspberry delightful beer). The event was made awesome by a combination of factors: the well-planned event layout, the cap of ticket sales, and the great variety of taps.