After a late Friday night at the Cincinnati Winter Beer Fest, I was up early and on my way to the first ever 5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference. I woke up with quite a headache that was still lingering after a shower and getting dressed for the day, so I cracked open my last remaining bottle of Founders Breakfast Stout to start off the day. I figured if beer was involved in the conference there was nothing wrong with starting the day off this way.

Turns out I wouldn’t be the only one drinking before noon that day, as Troika Brodsky from Schlafly  brought along some of their beers for us all to try. I wish more would have followed in his footsteps and brought beer along for us to sample, but that truly is my only complaint of the day. Maybe next time I should bring some beer along myself, I don’t think anyone would oppose.

Throughout the morning and afternoon there were various presentations and conversations that fit into one of the three main categories: beer, bites, or general blogging. Each hour there were three different sessions to choose from, one for each of the categories. I primarily stuck with the beer blogging track, even though I rarely write about beer (something that may change soon).

The first hour I sat in a presentation from  Tamre Mullins of Girls Pint Out and Elle Potter of Zephyr Adventures as they filled everyone in on the upcoming Beer Bloggers Conference that is scheduled for Indianapolis on July 13-15, 2012. It sounds like a really cool event, and I may consider attending if my summer isn’t already busy enough. I know that my friend Adam, who was also attending the 5B conference, is also interested in going.

The next hour I did switch over to the general blogging session where Troika from Schlafly and Jay Kulpa, a freelance social media manager, discussed being a professional social media coordinator. Truthfully I wasn’t sure what the session was going to be about, but I knew there was beer being served, so I was in! Turns out Troika had a ton of very interesting stories about how he started the social media campaigns for the brewery on both Facebook and Twitter without anyone knowing. Now he serves as the communications director of the brewery and still manages the social media accounts.

Free Beer

After lunch (which I will write about later) I stuck with the brewery track. First I listened to the CEO of Christian Moerlein, Greg Hardman, tell us all about the brewing history of Christian Moerlein and provided us a very descriptive picture of what the Moerlein Lager House will look like when it opens in just a couple weeks on February 27. I was hoping for a tour, but I guess I will see it soon enough.

The next session featured three of the brewers of the Cincinnati Beer Week Barleywine,  Mitch Dougherty of Rock Bottom, Jared Hamilton of Mt. Carmel Brewing and Jason Roeper of Rivertown Brewing. It was my first time meeting any of the brewers from these establishments and it was great to hear of the difficulties encountered while brewing, and how successful the beer was in the end. I later had a chance to talk with both Mitch and Jared more and they both were really great guys and very informative on their beers.

Finally, Tom Streeter of Hoperatives (the website who was more or less in charge of the conference) led a beer blogging town hall, where good discussion occurred on what things we’d like to see change in the Cincinnati beer community and how beer bloggers can be better involved with the breweries that are already in our city and those that are soon to open. It was a nice recap of all that we had learned and already discussed earlier in the day. As I wrote earlier, I really do hope that this becomes an annual event. I would definitely attend again.

I spent the majority of the last weekend down at the Duke Energy Convention Center for both nights of the fifth annual Cincinnati Winter Beer Fest and the first 5B: Believers in Better Beer, Bites, and Blogging Conference, which  I hope will become an annual event. In addition to great presentations and conversations, the 5B offered cheap admission to both nights of the Beer Fest. I will write more about the conference in future posts, but for now I will keep my focus on the Beer Fest itself.

A couple of things I saw that need immediate attention are the overall lack of organization to the entire event, and the extreme crowds that were present on Saturday night. Fortunately there were so few people in attendance on Friday night, that I was able to sample nearly everything that I wanted in just one night. Top beers for me included the Tazza Mia Espresso IPA from Rock Bottom Cincinnati, as well as the X-Hop IPA from Fat Head’s  and D.O.R.I.S. the Destroyer Double Imperial Stout from Hoppin’ Frog. It was also nice to have some special release beers from local breweries Rivertown, Listermann, and the soon to open Blank Slate. I also have come to the conclusion that I do not care for cask conditioned IPA’s.

Packed House For Beer Fest

On the organizational front, it all starts with the terrible website that is in place for the event. Not only is it flash based, but navigating the site to find information is nearly impossible. No where is it mentioned if food would be served inside. A map of the festival was promised on one page but was never posted, or if it was I could never find it. Once inside the event center, there were signs directing people where to go based on their ticket type, but I was given the wrong type of wristband on the first  night and completely missed the  connoisseur session that I had paid extra for. I had assumed that it would be inside the main festival floor, but when I finally tracked down a map I could not find the connoisseur section listed. Turns out it was on a separate floor away from the rest of the festival.

Obviously I will likely still attend an event like this in the future, but it doesn’t hurt to hope for some improvements that are much needed. And if a stricter limit isn’t placed on the number of tickets sold for each night, I would definitely opt to skip the Saturday night session. It was much too crowded and every single booth had at least a ten minute wait for a beer. Plus a number of breweries ran out of beer before closing, some even packing up their booth and heading home early. I joined them and was back home by 10pm on Saturday night after having tasted less than ten beers on the main festival floor.

Cincy Beerfest Cake

This past Saturday was Christmas in Loveland. Kim, Trey, and I headed out to visit with my parents and take in the sights of this annual festive event. We spent most of the time on the patio of Paxton’s  enjoying drinks and a fire pit. From there we had a perfect view across Loveland Ave toward the live nativity, various choir performances, and the horse-drawn carriage rides that were frequently going past. The weather outside was far from frightful, so the crowds were large, and it was overall a fun night out in the burbs.

Santa Band

After waiting over an hour for a table, we eventually settled in to The Works Brick Oven Restaurantfor dinner. The nice thing was that we were able to put our name in, along with a cell phone number, and they called us when the had a table available. That meant that we were able to enjoy the festivities rather than waiting inside the restaurant for a table. Later, during dinner at The Works, we were treated to a surprise visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with the thirty piece Santa Band.

Santa And Mrs. Claus

Tickets for the 5th annual Cincy Winter Beerfest  are now on sale. If you purchase them before Christmas, you can get VIP tickets for the same price as regular tickets, just $35 each. VIP includes early entry, 25 samples, and an 8oz souvenir glass. The festival takes place over two nights and includes 300+ beers. We are planning to go VIP style for the Friday evening session if anyone would like to join us.

Also Hoperatives  is putting on the 5B:  Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference to be held Saturday, February 11, 2012. “5B is a one-day blogging conference featuring sessions on beer blogging, food blogging and blogging in general.” Registration is just $50 and includes a general admission ticket for Friday night and a Connoisseur ticket for Saturday night. You can also upgrade to a Connoisseur ticket for Friday night as well for just $25 extra. This is definitely the way to go, and I just submitted my registration. The only catch is you have to be  affiliated with an active blog, which means at least eight posts in the last two months.

Last night Kim and I headed to Music Hall for Great American’s annual Christmas Party. This isn’t your average company holiday party, as they always bring in some big name talent for a couple of special concerts. This was my first time attending the party as we have always lived out-of-town in years prior. Kim did go years ago when she was a co-op student and remembers seeing Wayne Newton. Last year they had Darius Rucker and I think a year or two before that was Michael Bublé. The  entertainment  for this year was none other than Carrie Underwood.

We were treated to seats in the orchestra pit and even though we arrived just five minutes after the theater doors opened the only open seats we found were in the fourth row. This Carrie Underwood is one popular gal. Immediately upon her arrival on stage everyone had their phones and cameras out taking photo after photo of the stunning beauty. Throughout the hour and half set the audience was treated to a variety of tunes from her three albums and even a couple of Christmas songs. Between tracks the singer often showed her down to earth side with funny stories and brutal honesty. She was accompanied on stage by an eight piece band who all appeared to be well accomplished musicians.

Overall I enjoyed the concert, even though it isn’t normally in the style of music that I listen to. With that said Carrie Underwood does have an amazing voice and vocal ability. She seems like a very genuine person and she deserves all of the success she has earned. It is always nice to scratch a big star like this off my list of bands seen, especially when it comes at no cost. My only regret is that I should have brought a better camera.

This past Saturday was the annual Eden Park Balluminaria. During this event a dozen or so hot air balloons line up around Mirror Lake in Eden Park and simultaneously light up the night. Some of my photos from the evening are below. My mom also has posted hers on flickr.

In case you live in a cave, today is election day. I made it out to my polling location over lunch to color in my ballot. The past couple of years in Denver we had voted through the mail in the weeks before the election, so this my first time voting in person in a while. I was afraid I’d find long waits or complicated processes, but it all went smoothly even though I have yet to obtain my Ohio license.

There were a handful of very important issues on the ballot. The biggest for me is the proposed issue 48. Regardless of your stance on the planned streetcar, this charter amendment impacts much more than it. If it were to pass it would block the streetcar as well as any other rail projects until the end of 2020. I was very happy to cast my vote against issue 48 and I hope you all will join me. It is time for our city to progress into the transportation future.

We spent this past weekend in Cleveland, Ohio for my cousin Mark’s wedding. The wedding took place on Friday so Kim and I decided to drive up Thursday after work to make the drive easy on Trey and so that we would have Friday morning and afternoon for relaxation and play time in the hotel pool before the festivities.

Dark Cake Picture

The reception was one of the longest I can remember, going from 6pm until midnight, and  was a ton of fun! They had a nice tiered cake with different flavors of cake in each tier, which was a fun surprise. They also had a really good band on the stage, The Remains. The band actually traveled from Cincinnati for the event, so keep them in mind if you are planning a Cincinnati area wedding. They play an excellent mix of songs but focus heavily on the music of The Beatles.

The Remains

Everyone in my family had such a good time, we all decided to stick around until Sunday even though we had originally planned to drive home on Saturday. Congratulations to Mark and Monica and I hope to see you guys again soon.

Sunday we attended the last Second Sunday on Main for this year. The event is advertised often at the end of mass and we finally had the opportunity to check it out this past weekend. Their website advertises that it is a hip, eclectic neighborhood event, and this was very true. There were tons of hip clothes, furnishings, and crafts on display from various eclectic vendors from the Over-the-Rhine chamber of commerce.

Also on hand we a few different food vendors, a stage with a few different bands playing throughout the afternoon, and even a beer booth. Though we didn’t buy anything during our stroll through the event, Kim did find some ideas for an upcoming baby shower. We also sampled food from a couple of the food vendors, full reviews to come soon. Overall it was a nice afternoon spent downtown. Plus Kim and Trey’s photo made it in the photo gallery on Metromix  (photo 15).

My recording of MER‘s performance at this year’s Pig-Fest XVIII is now uploaded to archive.org. This is nearly three hours of new original songs and a wide variety of classic and more recent cover songs, including “Friends In Low Places” with everyone in the crowd singing along. Remind me next year to point the stage mic toward the crowd to pick up the singing better on tape. MER is currently busy recording a couple of different albums that we hope to hear soon. He also has a bunch of music available on iTunes for purchase. Please support him now and in the future.