If you’re a listener to Cincy Brewcast (You should be… it’s a pretty fun show) and you are caught up, you’ll remember that a few weeks back when I sat down with Rivertown Brewing Company they mentioned their upcoming Craftoberfest.

As the time gets a little closer, I wanted to give you a peek at what the event is all about, and some of the beers that they’ll be pouring at it, to stir up your appetite a little bit.

What’s It All About?

Craftoberfest is more than just a celebration of the end of summer and the beginning of fall, it’s a celebration of German heritage, and local beer… and maybe even a little bit of a celebration of a new era of Rivertown too. (You might have seen the recent news that the brewery put out on their social media, that they’re making the move locally into self-distributing).

They’re using the event to bring forth some of the best Oktoberfest and Fall seasonal beers that you can find around Cincinnati, and pairing it up with great, traditional food, music and games

The Food

It’s not a real celebration (especially if you’re at Rivertown’s Barrel House) if you don’t have a great menu to go along with what you’re doing, and the restaurant has created a delicious sounding traditional German menu to keep you from getting hungry that day.

Oktoberfest Appetizer Sampler

  • Bier Pretzel with house made Sweet and Spicy Bavarian mustard served with sauerkraut balls.

Oktoberfest Wurst Sampler

  • 1/4lb house-made, smoked knackwurst along with 1/4lb house-made German-style bratwurst served with traditional German Rotkoh, German bacon potato salad, German Hengstenberg sauerkraut and house-made sweet and spicy Bavarian mustard.

The Beer

It’s not any worthy craft beer celebration without the best in craft beer, also.  Rivertown gets this, and lives that mantra on a regular basis.  They are, after all, one of the few breweries that keeps rotating guest taps on all the time to make sure you are getting a glass of the most exciting craft beers that are available around town – not just their own.  For their first ever Craftoberfest they’re kicking things off with a really great selection:

Woodburn Brewery
  • Oktoberfest
  • Mocha Milk Stout
Fifty West
Grainworks
  • Oktoberfest
  • TBD
Warped Wing
  • Lagerstadt Oktoberfest
  • Creepshow Smoked Porter
Fretboard
  • Fugee Breakfast Brown Ale
  • Feti Mimosa Blood Orange Sparkling Perry
Listermann
MadTree
FigLeaf
  • Festbier
  • Belgian Tripel

The Details (When, Where, Why)

It’s all important for you to have down if you want to dedicate a valuable piece of your weekend calendar to an event.  The when and the why are both pretty easy.  The event takes place at the Rivertown Brewery and Barrel House which is located at 6550 Hamilton Lebanon Rd in Monroe.

The event starts at noon and keeps going until 10:30pm – a full day, beer drinking exgtravaganza.

The why, though… It’s a little harder to put into a concise little paragraph for you to understand how I feel.  (And these are just that, my thoughts and my feelings about it.). Rivertown has been through a lot.  You guys know at this point how much I love what everyone contributes to our local beer scene, and Rivertown has been here from the beginning, doing things that weren’t always “cool” or “trendy” – they pioneered what it means to make craft beer in Cincinnati.  This move to a way bigger brewery, right at a time when the industry often is telling people not to do that wasn’t the easiest transition.

It’s a perfect opportunity to get out to the brewery, a space that is beautiful, to not just eat some awesome food, and drink some fantastic beer – it’s a chance to shake a few hands, give out a couple hugs and just let Rivertown know that you’re as excited about what this next chapter holds for the brewery as they are.  They’ve got some killer stuff on the horizon, and I can’t wait to see them keep growing and evolving as a cornerstone of Cincinnati craft beer.

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