Happy Thursday, Scoopers!

As you probably already know this weekend we’re celebrating Bockfest in Cincy! And in today’s email, we take you on a walk through the history of this awesome tradition!

But first…

🍦 MINI SCOOPS

🥞 Breakfast beers: Sam Adams teams up with Makers Bakers Co. once again to bring us the Cinnamon Roll Breakfast Bock

🏃 Running for brews: The folks at Factory 52 have announced their inaugural St. Patrick’s Day Sham-ROCK and Run which will feature live music, dancing, costume content, and of course, plenty of beer!

⚾️ Red’s Opening Day Parade: Everything you need to know to join in on the festivities.

🍦Cincy Dairy Whips: As the weather warms up, here is a full list of Cincinnati’s favorite creamy whip locations and when they open.

🐷 LOCAL

How Cincy’s Bockfest came to be!

Growing up as a teenager in Cincinnati, I remember going to breweries with my parents and seeing posters for Bockfest along the walls.

I never knew what it was, but I was fascinated by the art.

You’ve probably seen them yourself before - gorgeous, detailed posters, oftentimes displaying a goat in some fashion. They reminded me of old movie posters or adverts.

I thought they were the coolest things ever, but I’m embarrassed to admit I never stopped to learn more about what Bockfest actually was.

Well, one of the best things about running Cincy Scoop is that it gives me the excuse to learn about awesome things like this and call it work.

So if, like me, you’ve always been curious about Bockfest, but never stopped to figure out what it’s all about, here’s the scoop…

Bockfest as a Cincinnati tradition started in 1993, but the beer it celebrates has much older roots.

It’s believed that Bock beer was first brewed by German monks in the town of Einbeck (pronounced “ein bock”) in search of a highly nutritious, low-alcohol, beer they could drink during their Lent fasting.

Monks would spend the entire fast consuming only Bock beer and water. Hence the need for it to be both nutritious and low-alcohol, otherwise monks would wobble around nursing a buzz all month.

Bock beer likely made its way to Cincinnati, like many of our other favorite traditions, with the many German immigrants who made their home here.

And don’t forget that pre-Prohibition, Cincinnati was a beer MECCA!!

If you think Cincy has too many breweries today, it’s nothing compared to Cincinnati of the past.

In the late 1800s, Cincinnati was one of the largest producers of beer in the country. There were close to 20 breweries in OTR alone, and they were certainly needed because at the time Cincinnatians drank 2.5x the amount of beer compared to the average American.

During this period, Cincinnati Moerlein was the largest brewery in Ohio, and the 5th largest in the United States and it produced a variety of different beers including Bock during the Spring.

Sadly, despite its massive size, Moerlein didn’t survive Prohibition, but another Cincinnati brewery, Hudepohl did.

And thank god Hudepohl survived, because today’s craft beer movement may not exist without them.

In 1981, Hudepohl recognized Americans’ appetite for a more sophisticated variety of beer and purchased the rights to the Christian Moerlein brand to begin brewing what we today call “craft beer” under the historic brand.

And this is where Cincinnati’s Bockfest tradition begins…

In 1992, Francie Patton was working in Public Relations at Hudepohl and was tasked with coming up with a creative way to celebrate the release of Moerlein’s new beer - a Bock. It was the first new beer Moerlein had released since their original Lager in the 80s.

She had the idea to put together a festival celebrating the new Moerlein Bock Beer after reading historical accounts of pre-Prohibition festivals in the city, celebrating the arrival of Spring, always paired with Bock beer.

Patton had a small $1000 budget to put together the festival and first tried to host it in Mount Adams which was “the happening place at that time“ but got turned down by the city council.

So she turned to OTR, a much less “happening” place during the 90s.

There she found lots of enthusiastic business owners ready to participate like Julie Fay, who today owns Iris Book Cafe and Urban Eden, and Jim Tarbell who at the time was the owner of Arnold’s, Cincinnati’s oldest bar.

Together, and with the help of many others, they hosted the first Bockfest in 1993.

The parade started at the city’s oldest bar (Arnold’s) and ended at the oldest church (St. Mary’s on Main Street), a route that remains largely unchanged to this day.

Over the next decade, Bockfest gained popularity as a quirky celebration of Cincinnati’s history, but fell on hard times in the early 2000s when the riots gave suburbanites a reason to avoid downtown and BarrelHouse Brewery, a large early supporter of the festival, went out of business.

However, the tradition survived and experienced massive growth in the 2010s under the guidance of Ronday Breeden (the new owner of Arnold’s) and Mike Morgan, a lawyer-turned-self-described Bockfest “czar”.

Today, Bockfest is one of Cincinnati’s most beloved traditions. According to Bockfest organizers, the main festival draws in more than 35,000 attendants every year, and more and more businesses host their own events across the city.

Happy Bockfest!

📆 UPCOMING EVENTS

And now, here is a curated list of a bunch of Bockfest events you can check out this weekend (along with some non-Bockfest events if you need a break from all the suds 🍺)

FRI Mar 1, 32nd Annual Bockfest Parade (starting at Arnold’s of course)

FRI Mar 1 - SUN Mar 3, Bockfest Celebration at Washington Park

FRI Mar 1 - SUN Mar 3, Bockfest Hall at Rhinegeist (official Bock Hall)

FRI Mar 1 - SUN Mar 3, Bockfest at Braxton (official Bock Hall)

FRI Mar 1, Bockfest at Arnold’s (17 Bocks on tap)

SAT Mar 2, Goat Yoga - Bockfest Edition at Fifty West

SAT Mar 2, Lemonplooza (New Beer Release) at Braxton Brewing

SAT Mar 2, Sausage Queen 2024 Final at Rhinegeist

SUN Mar 3, Bockfest .05K Run (you read that right) at Norther Row

SUN Mar 3, Bockfest Goat Yoga at Rhinegeist

Non-Bockfest Events:

FRI Mar 1, Wine & Girl Scout Cookie Pairing at Party Source

SAT Mar 2, Frogman Festival at Oasis Conference Center

SAT Mar 2, Pro Showdown at Aces Pickleball

SAT Mar 2, 2nd Annual Bike & Trail Expo at Madtree Brewing

SUN Mar 3, Spring Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show

🐕 CINCYDOG OF THE WEEK

Mollie would also like to wish you Happy Bockfest 🐐

Thanks for being here with us. We’re looking forward to building a strong community of informed Cincinnatians who want to stay in the loop.

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