A great crowd at the Cedar Cultural Center.

A nice crowd gathered at the Cedar Cultural Center last night for the Zipp’s Spring Beer Tasting event. Part beer festival, part charity fund-raiser for the Cedar, this event brought together distributor, importer, and brewery reps in a showcase of over 100 regional and national beers. $20 bought your entry and included a tasting glass and all the samples you could consume. There was also a silent auction with proceeds going to support the Cedar Cultural Center. The auction included lots of beer swag, like glassware, t-shirts, and hats, along with biking paraphernalia and even a bike. Zipp’s did a similar event last fall that was not nearly as well attended. It was great to see so many people turn out to taste good beer and support a great cause.

I focused my tasting on beers that I had not yet tasted and I must say there were startlingly few. I ran through that list in fairly short order. There were a couple of standouts both on the good side and the disappointing side. By far the best beer I tasted all night was Flashback, an imperial brown ale from Boulder Brewing in Colorado. This beer is currently only available as the mystery seasonal beer in the Boulder sampler pack. It has a luscious caramel and toast malt profile with a backbone of light roast. The malt is balanced by nice resinous hop character and medium bitterness. I would gladly drink a pint of this. I went back for seconds and thirds of this beer. Another beer that I liked was the Big Red Imperial Red Ale from Southern Tier. This is another balanced beer with rich caramel malt and citrus/pine hops and nice fruity notes. The bitterness is restrained making for an easy drinking beer even with the high alcohol.

The biggest disappointment of the night was 2009 from Lagunitas. All hop flavor, with too little bitterness and too little malt, this was like drinking a lightly sugary, watery glass of orange-grapefruit juice. I like the beers from Lagunitas, but I’ll pass on this one. Another disappointment from an otherwise great brewery was Mom Hefeweizen from Rogue. A hefeweizen brewed with ginger and coriander, this to me was a so-so wheat beer with overwhelming ginger and a little bit of soapiness. I wanted more wheat. I wanted more hefe.

The real pleasant surprise of the night was Crispin Cider from right here in Minneapolis. They were there with three varieties of natural apple cider. The Brut was the best of the three, tart but with a mellowing sweetness, full of fresh apple, vanilla, and vinous fruity flavors. The lighter Original and even the 3.2% ABV Light were also quite tasty. I have only recently learned to like cider, but I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up a six-pack of Crispin.