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Arts & Entertainment News

PHOTOS: 2013 Bockfest Turned Out the Crowds on Busy Weekend

Bockfest celebrated another great year of spring-time and beer celebrations over the past weekend. Record crowds reportedly turned out for the festival’s 21st year, and UrbanCincy was there to “cover” it all on your behalf.

For those not familiar with some of the otherwise peculiar traditions of Cincinnati’s lesser-known, seasonal beer festival, let us explain.

The lead goat is named Schnitzel, and the reason goats play such a prominent role in Bockfest activities is because Bock is the German word for goat, and those references to goats are what give bock beers their names.

The reason you see a bunch of monks, or people dressed as monks, walking around is because bock beers have historically been associated with special religious occasions, like  Lent, and Bavarian monks were known for brewing and consuming bock beers as a source of nutrition during times of fasting.

The following 36 photographs were taken by Jake Mecklenborg during the annual Bockfest Parade and at Grammer’s, Neons Unplugged and Bockfest Hall at the Christian Moerlein Brewery. Click on any of the images to view its full size. You can also click through the entire 2013 Bockfest photo gallery by clicking on the first image and scrolling through the collection.

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Up To Speed

Germans dominate ethnic makeup of Ohio cities

Germans dominate ethic makeup of Ohio cities.

What may be unsurprising to many locals, new U.S. Census numbers confirm that German-Americans make up the largest ethnic group in the Cincinnati region. Analysis shows that approximately 28% of Cincinnatians responded that have German roots, which is more than Ohio’s two other major cities (Cleveland 17%; Columbus 23%). More from The Business Journals:

German-Americans form the largest ethnic group in the United States — 45.7 million persons. But their prominence is even more striking when viewed at the local level. On Numbers has analyzed ancestry data for every metropolitan and micropolitan area covered by the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey. German-Americans are the biggest ethnic group in more than three-fifths of those markets — 580 of 942.

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Arts & Entertainment Business News

Moerlein, Paulaner bringing massive festival tent to Cincinnati’s central riverfront for Oktoberfest

Cincinnati has long been home of the world’s largest Oktoberfest celebration outside of Munich, and it will soon be getting larger. At the 2012 Oktoberfest Zinzinnati festival, the Moerlein Lager House will partner with Germany’s Paulaner Brewery to create the ÜberDrome.

The ÜberDrome will be a massive Oktoberfest tent covering the entire event lawn at Smale Riverfront Park. It will connect with the biergarten at the Moerlein Lager House and will create a space for approximately 3,000 festival goers.

“This ‘über’ fest tent, filled with Munich-style tables and benches, will span the entire length and width of the Schmidlapp Event Lawn, adjacent to the Lager House in Smale Riverfront Park,” said Greg Hardman, Managing Partner of the Moerlein Lager House and CEO of the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company. “The Oktoberfest beer will be flowing, there’ll be endless platters of delicious German dishes and the celebration will go on and on!”

The Moerlein Lager House will add a new element to Cincinnati’s annual Oktoberfest celebration when it introduces the ÜberDrome in 2012. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

Paulaner is a famed German brewery that is well known for its enormous festival tent in the Theresienwiese during Munich’s Oktoberfest. Hardman says that the brewery was looking for a perfect location to present their Munich-style Oktoberfest celebration in Cincinnati, and determined that the central riverfront was just that.

The ÜberDrome will feature German-style pretzels, specially made Hudepohl Beer Wurst and other sausages, wiener schnitzel and strudel plus a wide selection of Paulaner and Moerlein beers including the Paulaner Oktoberfest Weisn, which was the original beer sold at Munich’s Oktoberfest.

The festival tent will also include a performance stage in the center of the space that will feature a variety skits, comedy, games, and music by Bavarian-style bands like Alpen Echos, Pros’t, and Heuboden Musikanten who will fly in from Germany for the event.

“This has been a life’s dream of mine to bring something like this to Cincinnati and, like the Moerlein Lager House itself, we are shooting for the ‘WOW’ factor,” explained Hardman.

Cincinnati’s 2012 Oktoberfest celebrations will take place from Friday, September 21 through Sunday, September 23. The ÜberDrome (map) will be open on these days from 4pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday, and 12pm to 9pm on Sunday.

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Business News

EACC conference aims to jumpstart region’s skilled labor workforce

The European-American Chamber of Commerce (EACC) will host its annual conference at the Hilton Netherland Plaza in downtown Cincinnati today. The goal of this year’s conference is to examine the best practices for recapitalizing America’s skilled workforce for global competitiveness.

While the discussion will be aimed at large economic trends, local business leaders see the conference as an opportunity to better position the Cincinnati region for additional foreign investment.

“While this conversation has been ongoing in our region, we are providing a platform for community stakeholders to connect and discuss how we can work to grow our skilled labor work force on both sides of the Atlantic,” EACC executive director Anne Capel stated.


Sites like the former Newport Steel property offer land for potential expansion of the region’s skilled labor workforce. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

According to local business leaders, one of the ways in which the United States in general, and the Cincinnati region specifically, could improve is through better training and coordination between academic institutions and businesses.

“There is a great need for skilled manufactures like machinists and mechatronics,” explained HAHN Automation CEO, and EACC President, John Baines. “And a common complaint from European business leaders is that they can’t find this kind of talent.”

Baines went on to say that a key difference between Europe and the United States is the prevalence of apprenticeship programs. Such programs, he says, give Europeans a leg up in skilled manufacturing since, in some cases, people have been working in the fields since they were 13-years-old. Cincinnati-area business and community leaders are hoping that this year’s EACC conference will help change all that and close the gap between workforces.

“Skilled trade is a great way to go,” said Baines whose company opened its North American headquarters in Hebron, KY in 2001 and currently employs 50 people. “You are able to avoid debt by working while you study, and get both theoretical and practical experience.”

He says that the EACC is trying to encourage skilled manufacturing companies throughout the region to develop apprenticeship programs of their own, and hopes that academic institutions will stay up-to-date with technological advances and skills training needed by the industry.

The issue is so important to Baines and HANH Automation’s North American operations based out of Hebron, KY that he says the company is working on its own apprenticeship program that will hopefully be in place in no more than one to two years.

“I hope business leaders will walk away [from the conference] seeing the value in these apprenticeship programs,” Baines concluded. “It is important that community leaders appreciate the value of skilled labor and see it as a good career path. It’s a very respectable career with good pay, and an almost guaranteed job should you have the right training.”

The 2012 EACC Skilled Labor Workforce Conference will host more than 200 attendees today and will feature speakers from academic, public and private sectors. Keynote addresses will be given by Karen Eizey, director of the Skills for America’s Future program at The Aspen Institute, and Joerg Ernst, executive vice president of global business at Siemens AG.

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Arts & Entertainment News

German Day Weekend reminds Cincinnatians of German roots

Cincinnati’s German heritage will be evident this Saturday and Sunday at the 116th German Day Weekend.  The event will begin at 11am Saturday June 4 at Findlay Market with a parade and opening ceremony.  German dance and singing groups will perform, and representatives from numerous area German-American societies will be on hand.

Dr. Don Heinrich Tolzmann, president of the German-American Citizen’s League and author of several books including German Cincinnati, says that “Germans influenced just about everything in the area: even the symbol of the city, the Tyler Davidson fountain which was brought from Munich, and the suspension bridge, which was built by Roebling, a German immigrant.”


2010 German Day Parade.

Along with St. Louis and Milwaukee, Cincinnati forms a part of the German Triangle, consisting of the three major centers of German heritage in the United States.  The first Germans came to this area in the late 18th century, and many followed in the 19th and 20th century.  “Germans were involved in all different industries in addition to brewing, like baking, banking, and music,” said Tolzmann, a retired UC professor.

On Sunday, June 5, join the fun at Hofbräuhaus Newport, where German music can be enjoyed throughout the day along with German food and plenty of beer.  Hourly raffle prizes will culminate in a grand raffle at 5:30pm: a dinner party for 20 at Hofbräuhaus.  Raffles will support the GACL and Cincinnati’s German Heritage Museum

The museum, which showcases memorabilia, artifacts and pictures relating to Cincinnati’s German history, located at 4764 West Fork Road, is open 1pm to 5pm on Sundays and by appointment.