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.

In a bit of  ridiculous  beer news, Elevator Brewing Co. in Columbus, Ohio has  re-released  their  Ghost Scorpion Lager, a beer made with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and ghost chili peppers. It is regarded as the hottest beer on the planet, according to the Ohio Breweries Beer Blog. In a quote from the previously mentioned blog:

“It’s not quite as dangerous as it was last year,” Elevator owner Dick Stevens said about the new version. “But we still tell people not to drink the stuff.”

You don’t have to tell me twice! I definitely will not be drinking any of this, and this comes from someone who will try nearly any beer out there.

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

Tonight is the last night for the second annual Cincinnati Beer Week. Just like last year I didn’t make it to nearly as many events as I had originally hoped due to a very busy schedule. Fortunately I can try to make up for it this weekend with tickets to both nights of the Cincy Beerfest.

The one event I did make it to was a draft tapping of Goose Island’s famed Bourbon County Brand Stout, which took place this past Tuesday at The Party Source. This beer is ranked 100 on both BeerAdvocate and RateBeer, truly a world-class beer. This was my first time tasting this delicious beer and man was it good! The 15% stout is aged on bourbon barrels giving it a ton of oak and bourbon flavors, but the base stout is so creamy and full flavored that it is almost too easy to drink. I could have had another serving but there was a one glass limit per person, and the glass was free for me to take home.

While in Columbus over the weekend I had one request and that was to have dinner at Barley’s Brewing Company. It never hurts to mix in a little beer with dinner on a family trip. Plus the restaurant appeared family friendly.

Outside

Fortunately one of my roommates from college, who now lives in the Columbus area, was able to join us for dinner. I asked him to meet us at 5pm for an early dinner and I’m glad I did. We actually didn’t arrive until after 5:15, but he was able to secure a table in the crowded restaurant for our group of 5. It seems there was a Columbus Blue Jackets game that night at the nearby Nationwide Arena and a good chunk of the crowd was obviously headed that way.

Inside

The inside of Barley’s is not very large, but they have managed to pack in a bunch of tables along the front and right sides, along with the back corridor.  There is also a large bar with plenty of beers on tap. I started with their Centennial IPA, which I thought was a pretty darn good beer. I also later sampled one of their Russian Imperial Stouts, which was also good. I didn’t enjoy the RIS as much as the IPA, but both are worthy of ordering again.

Jamaican Me Chicken

For dinner I went with the Jamaican Me Chicken sandwich which combines jerk seasoned grilled chicken breast with  Jamaican  relish and  pepper-jack  cheese ($9.99). The chicken was a double breast and was well cooked. I was hoping for a little more spice from the jerk seasoning, but overall the sandwich was good. For my side dish I chose their cheddar and potato  pierogies. I think this was my first experience with pierogies. Unfortunately it might be my last experience with them though, as these didn’t really do much for me. Overall they were fairly bland and uninteresting.

The Wedge

My old friend had The Wedge salad – crisp iceberg lettuce wedge with diced tomatoes, smokey bacon bits, balsamic marinated cherry tomatoes, red onion and crumbled gorgonzola bleu, then drenched with our bleu cheese dressing and a drizzle of balsamic reduction ($6.29). This salad looked really good and from what I’m told it tasted great too. I’m  intrigued  by the balsamic reduction that is added to the other somewhat typical wedge salad toppings.

Turkey Nut

My wife had the Turkey Nut burger –  ground turkey seasoned with parmesan and herbs, topped with pecans, and served with spicy mayo –  Barley’s classic for nearly two decades ($9.79). She chose to have a side salad for $1.29 extra, but it was a pretty large and fresh salad. I didn’t try any of the burger, but again I’m told that it was a good sandwich. We also had orders of kid’s cheeseburger and grilled cheese (both $4.99).

Our service was actually much quicker than I was expecting from the crowded restaurant and bar. Overall the food was good and I enjoyed the two beers that I sampled. I would easily go back for more when in the area.

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.

Though I have yet to have any Oskar Blues beer in Ohio, I’m super excited to have one of my favorite Colorado Breweries regularly available to me again. As of Monday, cans and kegs of Dale’s Pale Ale (along with their other offerings) are available throughout Ohio. Take a look at all the events in the Cincinnati area alone. Be sure to pickup some of their stuff and let me know what you think.

Stone Brewing Co. released a beer last week called Enjoy By 11.09.12 IPA. From the brewery:

Let us present to you a new, devastatingly fresh double IPA. While freshness is a key component of many beers – especially big, citrusy, floral IPAs – we’ve taken it further, a  lot  further, in this IPA. You see, we specifically brewed it NOT to last. We’ve not only gone to extensive lengths to ensure that you’ll get this beer in your hands within an extraordinarily short window, we made sure that the Enjoy By date isn’t randomly etched in tiny text somewhere on the label, to be overlooked by all but the most attentive of retailers and consumers. Instead, we’re sending a clear message with the name of the beer itself that there is no better time than right now to enjoy this IPA.

This was the second time they’ve done this style of release, and early indications are that it is even more popular this time around than the last. It’s been just a week since the beer first appeared in Cincinnati and it seems that our supply is already gone. I had the opportunity to sample the beer on draft at the Cock & Bull in Hyde Park  on Thursday night. I also was fortunate enough to find a bottle at a liquor store near my office for my dad, a friend, and I to split over the weekend.

Devastatingly Fresh

This release of Enjoy By was kegged and bottled on October 5th, so I had it six days and then eight days after being shipped. And while that seems like an insanely quick turnaround, a new local brewery in town has a different take on things. Getting fresh beer from local breweries is each brewery’s number one goal. However it is often hard to tell how fresh a particular offering is, especially on draft. Fortunately this particular brewery does a great job of announcing when their beer is tapped throughout the city. All of this will definitely have me stopping to check for dates on bottles a little closer when making future purchases.

Yesterday was my second father’s day spent as a father. We spent the bulk of the afternoon at my aunt and uncle’s house swimming and hanging around their pool with various members of my extended family. It was a good way to wind down a rather chaotic weekend.

My mom helped Trey make a father’s day card for me toward the end of last week, which you can see below.

Trey’s Card To Me

Thanks Buddy!

Trey also knew exactly what to get me – a new temperature controller for his old deep freeze for milk so that I could turn it into a beer cellar! I’ve been quietly stashing beers in various places around the house, and now I can keep them all in a temperature controlled area until the perfect time has come to enjoy them.

New Temperature Controller

Re-purposed Deep Freeze

Starting My Collection