Bockfest Hall

This was just a lot of fun and a great place to drink beer! I love all the other seasonal things they do in the hall too. Looking forward to next years bockfest!

Great place to listen to live music, grab a beer & eat a pretzel necklace!

Its always fun, would love it if they could get the license figured out between the hall and Moerlein house. that’s crazy.

My Sister gave the hubs tickets to one of the historic tours during Bockfest so we came down early to hang out and drink beer. Bockfest hall was loud, crowded and just a barrel of fun.

Bockfest is one of my favorite Cincinnati events! We’ve been going to the parade and Friday night festivities for the last 13 years. Watching the event grow from Bockfest Hall being inside a small bar on Main Street to now taking up the whole brewery, 2 tents outside and the street has been pretty fun. They’ve done a great job of expanding the event to accommodate the larger crowds. There are plenty of beer and food vendors (cash only) and plenty of port-​o-​lets. The music both in the hall and in the tent are perfect as well. Bockfest will always mean Spring has sprung to me, highly recommend checking out this local tradition.

Great place to close out the bockfest parade.
More food options would be better for next year

Great beer, sausages, and giant pretzels. Add that to the back to back to back authentic German bands and great weather, and you get my definition of a perfect little festival. A great way to spend a Sunday.

I love Cincinnati. I love beer. I love festivals. The hall was a little blah, but I heard it got hopping the night before.

Love this space and beer… go every time I am in the area…

We had a great time at Bockfest (our first) this year. I ran in the 5k, which was a total blast (and had surprisingly clean portapotties!) The Bockfest Hall has lots of beer, some food, cheesy polka, and a cool little spot of folks selling beer memorabilia.
One thing that really concerned me after the 5k was how crowded the outdoor area was in a very small space surrounded by buildings, tents, and barricades. This could have been really dangerous in the event of an emergency. I really hope Bockfest comes up with a better way to handle crowd control in the future.

I don’t really enjoy bock beer but that being said Bockfest Hall is a great place even for the non-​bock beer fans. Along with Bock beer they had $ 2 Hudy delights and that is a huge win for me! Servatii’s was selling their pretzels with Bier cheese and well I’m pretty easy to please. Two dollar beers and a good snack, sign me up! The only downfall were the bathrooms were port-​a-​potties, not the end of the world but just couldn’t give 5 stars!

I love drinking… and I love the spring, therefore it stands to reason that bockfest is an essential part to my spring festivities every year. Bockfest Hall specifically gets better and better every year, and this years (2014) festivities are the best yet! It gets bigger and bigger with more and more attendees every year. Sausage… Beer… Music. Love it!

It’s warming up and there’s great food and drink. Fun, laid back people. Bring your own stein, your date, appetite, and thirst for great beer! Don’t forget cash and to look up where the Bockfest shuttle stops to keep you from wandering all over looking for a place to park. The challenge is remembering where you parked at the end of the day.

Bockfest hall is the hub of one of Cincinnati’s greatest annual events: Bockfest. Although attendance grows every year, the hall is somehow able to accommodate the crowd. It is a rare treat to see the inside of such a beautiful, historic building, all the while drinking (not worrying too much about spilled drops) and enjoying the best entertainment Cincinnati has to offer. There’s something about this place that makes all the beer taste delicious and everyone around your newest friend.

A must to kick off your March in Cincinnati.
Cincinnatians love their beer and we’re always up for a party to celebrate our German beer heritage.
Bockfest starts off with the Bockfest parade on Friday night, parade route starts at Arnold’s and ends at Bockfest Hall.
There’s a variety of music all weekend long. Saturday or Sunday during the day signup in advance for historic brewery tour, all run by volunteers, where you will appreciate your local bock beer even more after your tour. Proceeds from the tours fund development at the historic brewery sites.
Saturday night the Sausage Queen crowning is a site to see.
Bockfest grows every year and can’t wait to see what’s in store next year.

I love Bockfest.
It stands to reason, then, that I would love the center of all things Bockfest: Bockfest Hall.
The great thing about Bockfest Hall is that it is a constantly changing party. There are always a ton of people there, but there are plenty of rooms for everyone to circulate about. I never felt crowded or claustrophobic– except during the Sausage Queen competition. Arrive early to get a good spot for that, because you will not want to miss the hilarious antics.
The food was much better set up this year than in years previous, and there was a pretty decent selection of German foods. You’re going to find that most of them are fried. It’s a festival. That’s par for the course.
You can get your bock beer in a line that even at the busiest of times, is really not that long of a wait. Just be sure to drink up early on Saturday, because toward the end of the evening, they were beginning to run out.
One of the best things about Bockfest are the shuttle busses that run every 15 – 20 minutes throughout Downtown & OTR. Bockfest Hall also has a shuttle pick up. It makes it easy to hop around the area’s awesome bars. Even Grammars is open during Bockfest Weekend! Yahoo!
My favorite thing about Bockfest Hall this year (besides Sausage Queen, of course) was that a group of guys started a spontaneous flip cup game with a couple cases of Hudy Delight in one of the side rooms. It was a giant, rowdy, good time.
I can’t wait to see how Bockfest 2014 will top this one! :)

Cincinnati’s official kick off to spring happens the first weekend in March with the tapping of the annual keg of Bock Beer in the legendary Bockfest Hall. The hall is part of the new Moerlein brewing facilities. The building itself originated in 1886 as the Kauffman Brewery; the fourth largest brewery in the city. It features the legendary underground passages since former federal tax laws required bottling operations to be separated from brewing facilities. The brewery closed in 1919 due to Prohibition, and the building eventually became Husman Potato Chip Factory. In 2010, it was purchased by Christian Moerlein Brewing Company, which only uses 70,000 of the total 400,000 square feet for brewing operations. What does one do with that extra space? Have a beer hall, of course! And Bockfest Hall was born.
Bockfest Hall celebrates Cincinnati’s German (and beer) heritage. At the event, one can enjoy live folk music, German brass bands, German food from Mecklenborg Gardens, Taste of Belgium, and of course, six different kinds of beers served by Moerlein. This three day, all-​day-​long festival also features daytime walking tours, photo booths, and booths to view and purchase historic local artifacts, artwork, and beer steins.
Bockfest weekend kicks off with the annual parade on Friday evening. Friday night is the best night to go, and most of the day time activities take place throughout Saturday. After 10:00pm, things tend to get loud and rowdy, so if you’re not a fan of crowds you may want to attend earlier in the day. Please don’t bring children to the event. If you must, come during the early afternoon. This is an adult drinking event with crowds; not a family-​friendly function.
There are plenty of places to sit, and lots of food options including brats, metts, bierwurst, pretzels and bier cheese, fried pickles and much more. Prices are reasonable, with food being $ 3.00 and beers $ 5.00 per pint. Porta-​potties only for your toilet needs.
Tips:
— Bring cash.
— Take advantage of the shuttle.
— Be sure to attend at least one of the walking tours. They’re really neat.
— Ladies: watch your bag at all times. If possible carry one that zips shut.

I have learned this is not the former CM Brewing House. It is the former Kaufmann Brewery, but the home of the soon to be Christian Moerlein Brewing House. Now it all make sense.

One word: insane. So many people! It’s a wild and crazy time. I certainly enjoyed the spectacle, however, it’s not my choice for the main spot of the night.
The pretzels required a painfully long wait. While there was plenty of potential to make up for the wait in delicious goodness, I have to say they were still practically frozen. The mustard was good though. Finally, a place where a mustard pretzel is not looked upon as weird.
The beer selection is to be expected: decent. Prices aren’t as outrageous as they could be and there is a little something for everyone.
So, in summation, I guess I don’t totally love it as a bar type destination, it comes through on entertainment factor alone. You have to spend some time here every Bockfest.

Bockfest Hall is an adequate temporary festival venue that makes the best with what is effectively a warehouse. As the future home of the Moerlein Brewing Company, it’s a space designed for production and distribution of product, not necessarily a street festival event.
That is ok, though. The space is in Over-​the-​Rhine and walkable from lots of street-​side & surface parking, though not much on-​site parking is available. Though it is a bit out of the way of the core business district of OTR (Main-​Vine, Central-​Liberty), it’s but a ten minute walk to most of the places you’d want to go to and from.
Temporary seating, staging, portalets & tables are set up for drinking and relaxing. Vendors for food and drink are there with expected festival pricing. Lots of Bocks will be flowing from a variety of breweries.
The space houses most of the Bockfest events, as well. Live music, Sausage Queen finals, homebrew contest, book signings, etc. The space is large enough to generally accommodate these events with sight-​lines, but if the weather is accommodating, it can get a bit crowded.
Bockfest is a fantastic event for neighbors & visitors of OTR to get together and celebrate a unique brew & the coming of spring. The Moerlein building is not the perfect space, but it gets the job done as well as can be expected & is sure to leave attendees with fond memories.