Despite a protest from some local politicians after a LGBT group was not allowed entry, the Cincinnati St. Patrick’s Day Parade went off as expected this past Saturday. However rather than boycotting the parade all together, it seemed to me that there were many other groups in the parade showing support for the LGBT community and groups. I think this was much more effective than boycotting the parade, which would have done very little in the eyes of those watching the parade.

LGBT Support

My family and I watched the parade for a couple of hours and had a good time. This was my first time attending the Cincinnati parade, at least in recent memory, and while it doesn’t compare in size to the Denver version, it is a very spirited group and good fun for the entire family. With that said I wish they could somehow alter the route so that the parade wouldn’t have to be stopped every few minutes to let vehicular traffic through.

Sea Of Green

This past weekend was Bockfest, the annual  celebration of historic Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati’s brewing heritage, and the coming of spring. As we did last year, we took in the parade on Friday from outside Mayberry. At first the staff tried to stop us from taking our plastic cups of Bell’s Consecrator Doppelbock  out on the sidewalk, but as the parade approached they gave in and let us go outside.

Schnitzel, The Goat

Arnold’s Bathtub

The Trojan Goat

Bockfest Turns 21

OTR Brewery District

MOTR Pub

The Empire Strikes Bock

Pedal Wagon

We had a great time down at the parade and enjoyed our annual bock beer. The bock beer style is not my favorite, but I’m always up for drinking the correct style at events like this. Once again I didn’t make it to Bockfest Hall, but there is always next year.

After an awesome Friday night of the Cincy Winter Beerfest with so many friends and family, I was really looking forward to Saturday’s  second annual  5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference. You may recall that I attended the  inaugural  conference last year and had nothing but  positive  things to say about it.

The lineup for this year was a little different from last but the basic idea was the same, three sessions at a time with one of each focusing on beer, bites, and blogging. We had a little extra time at the beginning this year for the coffee and conversation opening, which was nice as I was able to catch up with people who I had met the year prior and also meet some of the newcomers for this year.

Once we broke out into the hourly sessions, I focused my attention once again on the beer blogging track. The first session featured social media stories (successes and failures)  from three local brewery representatives, Jason Brewer of  Listermann Brewing, Patrick Clark of  Mt. Carmel Brewing  and Carla Gesell-Streeter of  Rivertown Brewing. Turns out that Jason and Patrick both had stories similar  to what Troika Brodsky of  Schlafly Beer had last year. They all are performing the social media operations of their breweries in addition to other job functions within their breweries. Carla has recently helped Rivertown with their social media operations and I can attest to what a difference she is making.

Lunch was next and I promise to give a full review tomorrow of a food truck offering that I sampled. New this year was a private beer tasting we had thanks to  Heidelberg Distributing,  Stagnaro Distributing,  Premium Distributing  and Lexington Brewing. And once the beers became available many brought their tastings along with them to the afternoon sessions. I feel that this helped loosen the crowd and led to even better conversations.

Richard Dubé

The first session after lunch for the beer track was presented by  Richard Dubé, Head Brewer at the  Moerlein Lager House, and was titled, “And you say you don’t like beer!” It turns out that Richard gives weekly tours through the brewery at the Lager House and he almost always runs into someone who tells him that they don’t like beer. He then sees this as his personal mission to find a beer that they will in fact like. He says that it is impossible to dislike every beer, so they just haven’t had the beer that is right for them. I often feel the same way about beer and try my hardest to give suggestions to others based on their own personal tastes.

Up next we had the do’s and don’ts of beer blogging as presented by  Tom Aguero of  Queen City Drinks  and  Scott LaFollette of  Blank Slate Brewing. Tom is a beer blogger and Scott is a new brewery owner, so the two put together a great list of guidelines to follow when doing beer blogging, or any blogging for that matter. Tom had kindly posted the list on his website for reference.

Demystifying The Three-Tier Beer Distribution System

The final session on beer blogging was demystifying the three-tier beer distribution system with Lindsey Bonadonna Roeper of  Heidelberg Distributing, Eddie Anderson of the  Craft Beer Alliance, Pnut Kahles of  Dilly Café  and Travis Childs of  Everything’s d’Vine. While some may view the three-tier distribution system as pure evil, the panel helped to prove how it is actually beneficial to all the small craft breweries that I love. It may not be a perfect system, but it does help allocate space to the small guys, which probably would not happen if the big guys owned all the stores and distribution systems.

What was originally supposed to follow all the presentations was entry into the  Industry Trade Show and Locals Tasting Session, but that was canceled by the Beerfest. Instead we had our own bottle share, glassware swap, and general networking for the next couple of hours. This was an awesome addition to the conference! I was able to sample some rare and hard to find beers thanks to the generosity of other bloggers in attendance. As Tom from Queen City Drinks tweeted, “When founders breakfast stout is the least drank beer you know your somewhere special.”

Just as I said at the end of my post on the Beerfest itself,  as long as the conference is held I will definitely be a participant. Thanks Hoperatives.

Welcome!

The majority of this past weekend I spent down at the Duke Energy Convention Center for both nights of the sixth annual Cincy Winter Beerfest as well as the second annual  5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference. This may sound like a similar post from the same events last year, and in some ways it was. Once again the crowds on Friday night were much lighter than the nearly packed house on Saturday night. The added hour of VIP early entry is well worth the extra $10, even on Friday. And despite your best efforts, you will likely still have somewhat of a hangover the following day.

Fifty West

There were also a couple of differences that I noticed throughout the weekend. It actually seemed like crowds were down slightly. Either that or some changes were made to the floor to better spread the crowd. I didn’t see too many excessive lines even during the peak of Saturday’s session, when last year everything was a 10 minute wait or more. Regardless of how it was accomplished it was much appreciated as that was my biggest complaint from last  year.

Listermann

Plus there were even more local breweries available this year. Their booths seemed to get the majority of my attention, at least early on. It is nice to have an ever-growing list of local options when choosing what to drink. Hopefully they all will start appearing in local stores soon, making it even easier to sample their products without having to go into a bar or restaurant.

The Turkeys

On the opposite end I know some people who skipped this year due to an unimpressive lineup of beers. I did notice a few area where it seemed that there were more harder to find beers last year, but that’s what the  connoisseur  area is for anyway. This year’s connoisseur area was easily twice the size of last year and it offered private restrooms, plenty of harder to find beer, and tables full of finger foods. If that’s your thing it is easily worth the $75 price tag.

Beer Truck

The best part for me is that while doing all the above I was able to enjoy a wide offering of beer with both new and old friends alike. As long as this event is held I will likely be a participant in one way or another.

Credentials

If you recall I attended last year’s  inaugural  5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference and came back with essentially nothing but positive things to say. I concluded that if it were held again that I would definitely attend again. I’m happy to report that they are holding the conference again this year and as of today I am officially registered to be there!

For only a $60 registration fee I will receive admission to all sessions of the conference, plus a  Regular Admission  ticket for the Friday night session of the 2013 Cincy Winter Beerfest ($45 Value) and a  Connoisseur ticket  ($75 Value) for the Saturday night session. The Connoisseur ticket grants early entry into the Beerfest, access into the Connoisseur Reception Area (which will include appetizer bites from twelve local chef driven restaurants, rare beer list, private restrooms) and a special Connoisseurs only entrance area.

If you are a Cincinnati area blogger of any sort, I encourage you the join in the fun and register now.

Friday night we attended the Cincinnati Christmas Saengerfest  with complimentary tickets from American Legacy Tours. The event featured area choirs in five venues throughout the  Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. Though there were seven choirs spread around the venues we were only able to catch four of them perform. We saw the Cincinnati Boychoir at Memorial Hall, Nast Gospel & Praise Band at Nast Trinity Church, the Cincinnati Men’s Chorus at St. Francis Seraph, and the  Young Professionals’ Choral Collective of Cincinnati at the Christian Moerlein Brewery.

While at St. Francis Seraph all concert attendees were invited back into the friary to look at the extensive collection of nativity scenes from around the world, as well as loads of other Christmas decor. We also let Trey spend plenty of time with the animals in the live nativity, which is one of his favorite activities of the Christmas season.

The Christian Moerlein Brewery recently hosted an open-house to show off their newly renovated brewery space on November 21. Fortunately the area was again open to self-guided tours during the Saengerfest. I snapped a few photos of their equipment and look forward to when all of their brewing operations are finally moved back to Cincinnati.

Finally the Light Up OTR event had placed luminaries throughout the neighborhood and it was all capped off with a lighting of a Christmas tree in Washington Park.

We have been busy enjoying various holiday events over the last couple of weekends. We’ve already been twice to the Holiday Junction featuring the Duke Energy Holiday Trains, which I remember going to see as a child. And though I don’t recall seeing the Shillito’s Elves  display as a child, we also really enjoyed seeing the  rejuvenated  display  at Newport on the Levee recently.

The elves were displayed in the Shillito’s department store starting sometime in the 1950’s through 1980’s. Earlier this summer I somehow stumbled upon the Kickstarter project to bring the elves back and was happy to contribute $25 to help the cause. In recognition of the donation, I received two family passes to see the display. We used one pass last weekend and we will be happy to use the other sometime over the next month to go see the display again.

In addition to the elves, there are also two train displays. The first from the Ohio Kentucky Indiana LEGO Users Group is a very detailed LEGO city with two trains  circling  around it. There is also a large model train display from the Ohio Valley Sipping & Switching Society. Trey has been on a huge train kick recently, so these were highly entertaining. I wasn’t sure how he would react to the elves, but he quickly warmed up to them and he really seemed to enjoy them.

The animals for the live nativity are back at St. Francis Seraph, our regular church in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati. After mass this past Sunday we stopped in to see and pet them.

Himalayan Goat

The friendliest of the animals was this little Himalayan goat, named Tootsie. She was very soft and I’m told their wool is used in making the finest of  cashmere.

Saying Hi

Tootsie

In addition to Tootsie there are a handful of other goats and sheep, along with a couple of burros.

Burros

Under a stable roof there is also a manger scene compete with a baby Jesus doll.

Manger Scene

According to another blogger, the nativity can be seen as part of American Legacy Tours Spirit of Christmas  along with the collection of nativity scenes from around the world and the  Charles Dickens Village in the  Friary. Or you could join us for mass on any Sunday between now and Christmas to see the same things free of charge. The outdoor nativity is also open to the public though I do not know their schedule.

Last night we attended Newport on the Levee’s Light Up The Levy Grand Illumination event.  The highlight of the event was the flipping of the switch to turn on the lights on their large tree. Santa was on hand to help in the celebration and there was even a little fake snow to make it all the more festive. Since I will likely miss downtown Cincinnati’s Light Up The Square on Friday evening, this was a nice way to kick off the holiday season.

Tree Before

Interviewing Santa

It’s Snowing!

Grand Illumination

This afternoon I headed out to the Kenwood Towne Centre over an early lunch break to check out the grand opening of the new  Microsoft Store. Truthfully I was really going to get free concert tickets, but I figured I might as well take a couple of quick photos while there. It was so crowded though that I had a hard time getting much other than pictures of the crowd. From what I quickly gathered though, it looks very similar to an Apple Store, but obviously selling Microsoft hardware and software.

Crowd Outside the Store

Crowd Inside the Store

Inside Microsoft Store