Beerfest on Fountain Square

What the…
They changed Beerfest! Why???
With autumn beers being some of my favorites, Beerfest on Fountain Square was highly anticipated on my calendar. In the past, admission was free and customers paid $ 1.00 for a 3oz. sample of beer from each vendor. Since I’m picky about what I like, the pay-​as-​you-​go option worked perfectly for me.
Fast forward to 2012. Gone are the days of cheap 3oz pours. Now, you pay $ 30.00 in advance and receive 25 beer tickets. Show up on the day of and it’s $ 45.00 for 25 tickets. This is the same way Winter Beerfest is priced. It may work better for the convention center, but outside during the summer, I don’t want to commit to that much beer.
The 25 beer tickets each get you a 5oz pour. The problem is that the pours are too big. Sure, you’re getting more for your money, but when the objective of the event is to sample a variety, you either fill up quickly or end up tossing beer out of your cup to move on to the next booth. At Winter Beerfest, I used 7 of my 25 tickets. The heavy drinkers in our group used 13. I have no idea how anyone could come close to using all 25, as they would be consuming 125 oz (four liters) of beer in a five-​hour time span.
Take note from the first reviewer, Pat. The pay-​as-​you-​go method made this festival unique and attractive compared to cities that stick with the expensive method. Could we go back to $ 1.00 tastes, please?
Price per person: $ 30.00

In the past, this event was great! Admission was free, and it $ 1 a ticket. Great if you weren’t a big beer drinker but wanted to try some, or if you were driving you could have one beer and be good. It was a great time, you weren’t obligated to stay all day, and it was great if you just happened to be in the area (because lets face it, there’s about 7 other drinking things going on that weekend)
And then this year it changes… it’s not just like the winter one, where its super expensive, and you get a whole bunch of tickets, whether you want to drink that much or not… and their «marketing»? They’d rather just delete you off their social media pages and pretend you don’t exist…
So here you go Beerfest crew, Don’t «fix» whats not broken. I liked actually having a cheap beerfest to go to, where i didn’t feel obligated to get completely wasted to get my moneys worth.

The only Beerfest I had been to before this pas weekend was in Madison, WI. That was one where you paid a lot of money (around $ 30) for a ticket and then get all the beer you can drink. This one, on Fountain Square on one of the nicest weekends of the year, was the opposite. Admission was free, and it was $ 1 per 3oz sample of beer.
For me this pay-​you-​go-​deal was not only way cheaper, but also way easier. I never waited in line for more than maybe a minute or two, including to buy tickets (as opposed to in Madison where people wait in line for upwards of 6 hours several months ahead of time for tickets), and it was super easy to drop by for an hour before the Reds game, drink some samples, and then leave. I didn’t feel like I needed to stay all day and pound beers to get my money’s worth. I didn’t see anyone who was super drunk and making a scene. There were plenty of delicious food options, and lots of good beer, including several local options I hadn’t tried before.
This was a great way to get people together downtown to have a good time with little hassle and only as much money as you wanted to spend. Overall, I say Cincinnati Beerfest on Fountain Square = WIN!