A few weeks ago my friends and I went down to Oktoberfest Zinzinnati. I contemplated writing a blog post about it. It was certainly a good time. Good Oktoberfest beers, good food, (likely wildly unsafe yet amazingly fun) carnival rides. But really, there wasn't a ton for me to say about it. It was fun, but it was really more about the party than the beer. But this past weekend Listermann Brewing Company, along with the rest of the burgeoning Cincinnati craft beer community, got together for an Oktoberfest celebration that I can really get behind. My sister and I headed down on Saturday afternoon to see what was up. To the beer!
They couldn't have asked for a more lovely day for this event. October in Cincinnati can get pretty nasty. It rained pretty hard all night before but Saturday morning the sun came out and made for a beautiful, if a bit chilly day. My sister and I showed up and made straight for the beer.
The lineup was pretty impressive. Beers from All of the Cincinnati Craft breweries, Christian Moerlein, Listermann, Triple Digit, Blank Slate, Mt. Carmel, Rivertown, Cellar Dweller, Fifty West, Quaff Brothers, Wiedemann's and Rock Bottom. And unlike a traditional Oktoberfest celebration Listermann's was the only Oktoberfest beer on tap. Which I think was a great idea. I like a good Marzen as much as the next guy but half of the fun of craft beer is the variety!
Unfortunately I couldn't stay for long and wasn't able to try all of the beers that I wanted. I had a huge night of sports to watch! Down to Nippert to watch the Bearcats keep the Victory Bell and then back home to watch the Reds take game one of the NLDS. But while we were there my sister and I enjoyed some awesome beers. I had the Christian Moerlein Hell Town Rye-Ot, a very tasty brown Ale. Roasty, and rich with a great complexity. The Blank Slate Fork in the Road was outstanding. A hybrid between an IPA and an amber. The most surprising beer of the day would have to be Chickow, a collaboration between Triple Digit and Quaff brothers. A hazelnut double brown ale that at first impression tasted like an alcoholic version of Yoo-hoo. It was pretty fantastic. Tons of big chocolatey flavors but with a subtle roasty dark fruit complexity. I hope I can get full fledged reviews of all of these beers up on the blog one of these days. My sister sampled the Hefeweizen from Fifty West, Mt. Carmel's Harvest Ale, And the Oktoberfest Brewed by Listermann. All of which she quite enjoyed.
This event was a blast. We had a great time enjoying the great beer and a beautiful day. From what I've seen on Twitter the event was a big success. Hopefully this means we will see a lot more of these type events in the future. It's so cool to see a festival like this full of people enjoying great beers all from Cincinnati. As fun as the beerfest back in February was, this may have been cooler. This type of event is a huge step for the Cincinnati craft beer scene. Only a couple of years ago there's no way you could have an entire festival with beer brewed only in Cincinnati. Big time congratulations and thanks to all the breweries and volunteers involved!
HD
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