Bockfest Means Spring?

Long ago, monks would have to find something to make the Lenten fast more enjoyable. Naturally their thoughts turned to beer. All that not-eating made them hungry too. So they thought, "What if we made a meal we could drink, and it was made out of beer?" The result was bock beer. The 7-9% alcohol content may have been a survival tactic of those German monks to forget they were living in a cold, unheated abbey at the end of winter.

You may remember this blog was once entitled Strangers in a Deutschland. While we lived there I picked up dullard's German and can now tell you that the word "Bock" is German for "goat". Of the potential ways bock beer was named, my favorite, as likely least probable, story is this.

A knight challenged a monk to a brewing/drinking contest. The monk had just finished developing this new type of beer and brought it to the competition held in a barn (for no apparent reason). Each competitor traded their lager and they proceeded to drink. After a few "Stein" of beer, the knight started to feel the potency of this new brew and feel off of his "Stuhl". "Was ist passiert, Herr Ritter?" asked the monk. The knight looked around and saw a goat nearby and blamed it for having knocked him off his chair. The monk replied "The only Bock that knocked you off your chair was the one I brewed."

The association with Bavaria, monks, goats, and spring has stuck whatever the real origin of the brew. With the Reds in spring-training and daffodils sprouting, this weekend's Cincinnati Bockfest was supposed to be a good-bye to winter. Unfortunately, winter had other plans.



Cincinnati is under a snow emergency. That usually means that we got about 1" of snow, but this weekend we got a full foot. The bockfest parade had to be canceled. That meant that the Sausage Queen wouldn't be able to lead the procession this year. It also meant that the financial success of a great Cincinnati tradition would be in great peril.

Call us community advocates, but when a beerfest with an "oomp-ah" band is threatened, we know we need to help. We braved the blizzard and walked over to the Bockfest hall just in time for the blessing of the keg and playing of Roll out the Barrel.



We met Elena and her parents over at the fest too. The kids loved the music and danced to The Bier Band. Finn even got to play the bass drum. He loved dancing the polka with papa and listening to the music of the Vaterland. After each song, he kept signing "more". Sarah had a Mettwurst from Kroeger & Sons Meats, the annual supplier of our Megabash's sausage fest.

We stayed out later than we had in quite some time, getting home around 8:15. By then we saw that more people were braving the snow-mergency and filling up Bockfest Hall. It seems, thanks to our selfless act, that the tradition is safe for another year.