Glier’s Goettafest has expanded its festivities at Newport’s Festival Park on the Levee to two weekends (July 25-28 and Aug. 1-4) for the first time since the annual celebration began 18 years ago.
Goetta, next to Cincinnati-style chili, is our city’s most popular regional dish. And chances are high that you’ve been ordering Glier’s brand goetta from local restaurants; the Covington-based company claims to sell the most goetta in the world and has played a large role in maintaining goetta’s popularity since the sausage kitchen and smokehouse opened more than 70 years ago.
Not necessarily an outright invention that the Cincinnati area can claim, goetta is a continuation of the German Grützwurst tradition, a practical solution for feeding more people with less by essentially cutting sausage meat with starches. Goetta is a combination of pork and beef, whole-grain oats, onion and spices. The dish was made to stretch out cuts of meat with cheap, readily available ingredients, not unlike meatloaf, scrapple, livermush or haggis.
Attractions at Goettafest include two live music stages, a carnival-style dunk tank, face painting, speed pitch and more goetta than you could ever eat. There’s also a novelty refrigerated goetta vending machine on-site in case you want to take goetta home.
Now that the fest will span twice as long, there’s double the chance to enjoy one of Cincinnati’s culinary traditions.
Read about all of the goetta concoctions you can try this year here.
Photos by Holden Mathis
