Cincinnati Winter Beerfest 2013

Beerfest is back! I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. With this year's beerfest I made a concerted effort to only drink beers that I had never had before. There were a ton of great brewers there, all pushing a ton of great beer, so I had options. I also made an attempt to take some quick notes on each beer. As is understandable, those notes became less verbose and eventually disappeared as the evening wore on. It happens. I made an effort! To the beers!

REVIEW: Cincinnati Beer Week 2013 Embree's Northern Dark Baltic Porter

My friends! Beer Week is once again finally upon us! That reminds me, with Beer Week here, I'm reminded that a few of my earliest posts dealt with last year's goings on. I totally glossed right past my one year anniversary! So let me take this opportunity to belatedly thank each and every person who has checked in here every other day over the past year. It's so cool and totally gratifying that people get a kick out of this stuff. It's also cool because it makes that 'est. 2012' up in the masthead look slightly less preposterous. Stay tuned, because I have zero plans of shutting this thing down any time soon. There's way too much beer that I haven't had. Anyway, now that that's out of the way, back to Beer Week and more importantly, this beer. Last year to celebrate the inaugural Beer Week all of the local brewers got together at Mt. Carmel to produce a big, monstrously hopped barleywine. A beer that I was able to try and thoroughly enjoy. But also a beer that I am kicking myself to this day for not grabbing a six pack of. I imagine it would've aged amazingly. If anybody was forward thinking enough to lay a few bottles of that down let me know how they turned out! For this year's version Rivertown handled the brewing and bottling. There were also a few more cooks in the kitchen on this one. But in this case, that is categorically an advantage, as it just means that there are more Cincinnati breweries throwing their two cents in. Collaborating on Embree's Northern Dark Baltic Porter are Blank Slate, Christian Moerlein, 50 West, Great Crescent, Listermann, Moerlein Lager House, Mt. Carmel, Rivertown, Rock Bottom, Samuel Adams, and Triple Digit. Phew! I can't imagine there are too may cities in America that can boast too many more great craft breweries than that. OK, I've rambled enough. Let's see what we've got here. To the beer!

Cincinnati Winter Beerfest 2012

Beerfest, my friends! Let's get this out of the way right up front, it was a blast. I got to try great beers from breweries big and small, many of which are not distributed here in Cincinnati. Many that I'd never even heard of let alone tried. I think the thing that I liked most though, my biggest takeaway from the evening, was how cool it was to see thousands upon thousands of people in Cincinnati excited about craft beer.

Beer Week Pint Night With Left Hand, Founders, and Mouco

Folks, I'll be honest with you. I had an entirely different post lined up for today. I reviewed a very tasty beer the other night and I was all set to post it for you. It appears that life had other plans. Don't worry, you'll see the review eventually, this is way cooler.

I usually spend every Thursday night at the Cock and Bull English Pub in Hyde Park. It's one of my favorite beer bars in Cincinnati. They always have a fantastic craft beer list (60 taps!) and great food (Their fish and chips are the best in the city, hands down). Thursday is pint night. My friends and I always meet up, grab a beer or two, and head home with the glass. I have amassed quite the collection over the past few months. Tonight was something special though. As a part of Cincinnati Beer Week the Cock and Bull brought in the big guns: Left Hand, Founders, and some of the best cheese I've ever had from a cheese company in Colorado called Mouco.