Jun 15-22, 2016
The Beer Issue: The return of Little Kings • Urban beer gardens • Help for home-brewers • Inside Cincinnati Beer Week
Morning News: More budget battles; is marina a good idea?; Columbus scores big
Good morning all. Here’s a very brief morning news update. • Cincinnati City Council continues to wrangle over the city’s budget. You can read yesterday’s rundown here. Council’s Budget and Finance Committee is currently in an extra meeting trying to hammer out budget details before this afternoon’s regularly-scheduled full Council vote. At issue: a series…
Summer Music Fests in the Great Indoors
While it’s officially the “summer music festival season,” those adverse to standing outside in a field all day are in luck, as two excellent and unique fests with local music components await you this week — and both take place (mostly) indoors. • The Northside Music Festival was conceived by local arts and music Renaissance…
Cincinnati Author Reclaims Father’s Day with Insightful Memoir
For two decades, Father's Day was more like Memorial Day for Cincinnati-based writer Carrie Herzner — a day to remember the fallen. But in Herzner's case, the loss she was mourning wasn't her father Bill, it was her relationship with him. When Herzner was 5, her parents divorced and her father moved in with the…
The Fight Goes On
It’s been approximately one calendar year since the Supreme Court reached its landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the land. In one fell swoop, each and every American earned the right to marry whomever he or she chooses. For many same-sex couples, it was a day they never thought they’d see. We enter year two…
Minimum Gauge: Public Domain Crusaders Trying to Free “This Land”
HOT: Public Domain Crusaders The lawyers who got “Happy Birthday” put in the public domain are back in court working to have two other iconic songs join it. The firm is going after the two companies that claim copyrights on “We Shall Overcome” and “This Land is Your Land.” The lawyers, who took up the…
Clubs and Concerts Calendar (June 22-28)
Wednesday 22 Arnold’s Bar and Grill – Todd Hepburn. 7 p.m. Blues/Jazz/Various. Free. Bella Luna – RMS Band. 7 p.m. Soft Rock/Jazz. Free. Century Inn Restaurant – Paul Lake. 7 p.m. Pop/Rock/Jazz/Oldies/Various. Free. *Esquire Theatre – Ricky Nye & Ethan Leinwand. 7 p.m. Blues/Boogie Woogie. $5. *Fountain Square – Reggae Wednesday with Milton Blake &…
Morning News: City budget moves along; Trump’s campaign crumbling?
Hello all. Let’s get fiscal with the news today. Cincinnati City Council needs to approve the city’s fiscal year 2017 budget in the coming days, and with the clock ticking down, it looked as though major tiffs would be avoided this year. But alas, just like living with a bunch of roommates who are dating…
Morning News: Cavs win NBA title; more MSD questions; Senate to vote on gun bills today
Good morning all. Here’s what’s up today. Call it preemptive karmic solace for hosting what is sure to be a chaotic GOP national convention: Cleveland got its first major sports championship in more than half a century last night as the Cavaliers won the NBA finals. The Cavs did it after coming back from trailing…
Latest Cincinnati-Filmed Movie Shows Staying Power
The Esquire Theatre today begins the second week of showing The Fits, the latest Cincinnati-shot movie to get a national release. For those who have been following Cincinnati’s presence in the movies over the past few years, as both a filming location (Carol, Miles Ahead) and as a scripted setting for the action (the animated…
Morning News: Dennison safe for now; open carry rally planned during Pride festival; Obergefell skips library appearance over trans benefits fight
Hello all. Let’s talk about news, shall we? If you follow me on Twitter, (if you don’t, you should — @nswartsell) you know all about the drama that unfolded yesterday as the Historic Conservation Board denied an application to tear down the Dennison Hotel downtown. That’s hardly the end of this multi-part saga, of course.…
Stage Door: Two operas for theater-lovers, plus an ocean cruise and a trip to the ’60s
The surfeit of entertainment offered by the Cincy Fringe has ended, leaving many theater-lovers high and dry. But there are plenty of onstage performances worth considering this weekend. Although opera isn’t quite the same thing as musical theater, it’s definitely appealing to those who enjoy that category. Cincinnati Opera’s summer season kicks off this weekend…
Historic Conservation Board Says No to Dennison Demolition
Cincinnati’s Historic Conservation Board today denied an application to demolish the Dennison Hotel building at 716 Main St. by owners Columbia, REI, citing the company’s failure to prove it was an economic hardship to redevelop the building in one of downtown’s historic districts. The battle over the Dennison has come to represent how the city…
Your Weekend To Do List (June 17-19)
FRIDAY 17 MUSIC: JULIANNA BARWICK Julianna Barwick deserves a concert space without distractions to perform her music. When you’re playing keyboards and singing mostly wordless vocals looped and layered to achieve a reverent harmonic effect, you don’t want to be interrupted by bar chatter and clanking glasses. That’s one big reason promoter Ryan Hall has…
Nine Is the Deadliest Number
Ned Stark’s fall at the Great Sept of Baelor. The Battle of Blackwater Bay. The Red Wedding. The Battle of Castle Black. The Sons of the Harpy’s attack on Daznak’s Pit (not to mention Shireen’s sacrifice). What do all of these plot points have in common? They’re all majorly epic and memorable scenes from Game…
Searching for Memories in ‘Finding Dory’
During the advance screening of Finding Dory, the visually vibrant sequel to the adorable instant animated classic Finding Nemo, I couldn’t help but drift back to thoughts of Memento, Christopher Nolan’s dark psychological thriller from 2000. Bear with me, because I know it sounds strange to compare the two, but I imagine Dory, the loveably…
Dayton Art Institute Lights Up
Into the Ether, the current exhibit at the Dayton Art Institute (on view through June 26), gets its name from the fact that ether was once considered to be the substance in the universe that allowed light to travel and be seen. But perhaps a better term for the show, one that explains what the…
The Tenderloins Are Practically Famous
Their hit TV show is called Impractical Jokers, and that’s what many people call them. Behind the truTV reality series, however, is a comedy group called The Tenderloins, a quartet that has been performing together since the 1990s and will come through the Taft Theatre on Saturday. “We are still The Tenderloins to this day,”…
Fringe Festival Has Another Great Year
It was a wild scene at Know Theatre’s Underground Bar in Over-the-Rhine on Saturday evening after the final production of the 13th-annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Everyone converged to hear the winners of the Picks of the Fringe for outstanding productions. I arrived a few minutes late to discover some preliminary shenanigans already underway, including improv…
Clubs and Concerts Calendar (June 15-21)
Wednesday 15 Arnold’s Bar and Grill— Todd Hepburn. Blues/Jazz. Free. Bella Luna— RMS Band. Soft Rock/Jazz. Free. Boswell’s— Open Mic. Various. Free. Century Inn Restaurant— Paul Lake and Samantha Carlson. Pop/Rock/Jazz/Oldies/Various. Free. Esquire Theatre— Live ’n’ Local featuring Mark Utley and Bulletville. Country. $5. Fountain Square— Reggae Wednesdays with Gizzae. Reggae. Free. Jag’s Steak and…
New East Side venue offers space for Children’s Theatre expansion
Where does a love of theater begin? For thousands of kids around the Tristate, it’s long been with the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati, America’s oldest theater for young audiences. It began in 1924 as a project of the Junior League and became a nonprofit organization in 1947, eventually evolving into a professional theater company. For…
Authentic hand-pulled Chinese noodles are worth the effort at Clifton’s Fortune Noodle House
Fat and skinny. Dimpled. Wavy. All of them dense. You might wonder if I’m talking about my college boyfriends, but in fact I’m talking about the incredible and varied homemade noodles at Fortune Noodle House in Clifton. After recently indulging in a meal featuring soup, pan-fried noodles and fried rice, I’m sure you’ll feel no…
Red Takes Gold
In 1984, Jim Koch brewed a batch of beer in his home kitchen using a recipe he found in his father’s attic. The resulting Boston lager launched Koch’s own brand, now known worldwide as Samuel Adams. For the past 20 years, the Samuel Adams Boston Beer Company has honored that legacy of home-brewing with its…
Five Urban Beer Gardens
Beer gardens — or biergartens, if you want to get technical — originated in Bavaria as a place where the masses could gather to share locally brewed beer, light bites, good times and bask in the general warmth of gemutlichkeit. With Cincinnati’s strong German heritage and respect for our brewing roots, we take our biergarten…
The Beer Issue
Cincinnati Beer Week descends on the Queen City Sunday through June 25. That means a plethora of Tristate bars, breweries, restaurants and beer-based bus tours will turn up the hops and spend seven days celebrating local, regional and national craft beer. In honor of Beer Week, we've dedicated this week's issue to all things booze,…
Let There Be Beer
SUNDAY, JUNE 19 Old Belgium Meets New Belgium Beer Dinner — A four-course paired beer dinner (plus amuse-bouche and social brew) hosted by Taste of Belgium, featuring New Belgium brews and special guest, New Belgium brew master Peter Bouckaert. First seating 6:30 p.m.; second seating 7:30 p.m. $75. Taste of Belgium, 3825 Edwards Road, Norwood,…
Sound Advice: A$AP Ferg at Bogart’s (June 20)
A$AP Ferg’s 2013 debut full-length, Trap Lord, is sleek and relentless, a hypnotic banger that digs in and rarely lets go. Ferg is hard-edged throughout, a guy with something to prove, his largely straightforward delivery complementing sharp beats and dark-hued sonics. Flash forward three years, and Ferg is in a different place. If Trap Lord…
Sound Advice: Built to Spill at Woodward Theater (June 16)
When Doug Martsch conceived the Indie Rock bliss of Built to Spill nearly a quarter century ago, he envisioned a band of constantly rotating new members between albums, with himself as the group’s sole constant. To a degree, Martsch has maintained that ethic, although his pool of players hasn’t been impossibly vast; since 1992, Built…
Sound Advice: Julianna Barwick at Ice Cream Factory (June 17)
Julianna Barwick deserves a concert space without distractions to perform her music. When you’re playing keyboards and singing mostly wordless vocals looped and layered to achieve a reverent harmonic effect, you don’t want to be interrupted by bar chatter and clanking glasses. That’s one big reason promoter Ryan Hall has booked the Brooklyn-based artist at…
Sound Advice: Anvil at Southgate House Revival (June 16)
Guitarist Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner met in Toronto more than 40 years ago, and they’re still front and center on the band’s latest slab of straightforward Metal, Anvil Is Anvil, the 16th studio release in a career that almost sputtered to an unceremonious end on more than one occasion. Enter Anvil! The…
Spill It: Ryan Fine, Know Prisoners Celebrate New Releases
Singer/songwriter/producer Ryan Fine leads the eclectic Ryan Fine & The Media, a local 10-piece ensemble consisting of students and graduates of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. The Media’s repertoire is quite diverse, roaming from Jazz and Rock to Soul and Pop and often blending multiple genres effortlessly. But Fine’s first solo album, Alone…
Help for Home-Brewers
Eric Tanner has a dream — he wants to make brewing beer at home accessible and affordable for everyone. He and business partner Anthony Stoeber have designed a home-brewing platform they’ve dubbed the “Brewers Buddy.” Tanner and Stoeber met at Northern Kentucky University more than a decade ago. Bonding over a shared love of craft…
Not Dead Yet: Dead & Company Continues Grateful Dead Legacy
Many people assumed that when the surviving members of the Grateful Dead (with Phish’s Trey Anastasio taking on the guitarist/singer role of late band leader Jerry Garcia) booked a pair of stadium runs last summer billed as the “Fare Thee Well” shows, it would be the last time the members of the legendary group would…
Brew Cruise
You drink, they drive — it’s an excellent concept for a tour of Cincinnati’s glut of craft breweries and one manifested by local entrepreneur Mike Stokes, founder of Cincy Brew Bus. Stokes founded the tour company with his wife Jen as a hobby in 2013 with the intention of “making a couple bucks a weekend…
Worst Week Ever!: June 8-14
Cincinnati Makes Progress on Road Rehab Plan, Anticipates Whiny Bike Riders Our fair city used what felt like the first real week of summer to start off its six-year $109 million Capital Acceleration Plan, an effort designed to resurface roads and replace city vehicles that are probably still working just fine but could be replaced…
Morning news: Obama could come to Cincy next month; Cincinnati Gardens to be redeveloped; Trump’s popularity waning?
Good morning Cincinnati! Here’s your news today. The board of the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority yesterday voted to purchase two large Hamilton County sites for industrial redevelopment, including the 67-year-old Cincinnati Gardens arena. Pending financing and further research into feasibility, the Gardens would be demolished so the Port can attract an advanced manufacturing…
Cincinnati has given out hundreds of millions of dollars in development tax incentives. Has it been worth it?
For decades, Cincinnati was like many American cities: in a tough spot due to falling population, jobs and tax revenues. To combat that, municipalities like the Queen City ramped up a bevy of tax deals to keep and lure employers and developers — and, in turn, residents — to their urban areas. But a report…
MidPoint Announces First Wave of 2016 Fest Bookings
This past spring it was announced that CityBeat was partnering with Music and Event Management Inc. to produce the MidPoint Music Festival going forward. Today, MEMI (a subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra which books events at Riverbend Music Center, Taft Theater and other venues) has announced several details about the 2016 MidPoint fest, including…
In Tune with the New OTR
The last remaining rotating lit sign in Over-the-Rhine will act as its own Roman candle when it sparks a business at the corner of West 12th Street and Central Parkway back to life this July. Siblings Louisa Reckman and Gabriel Deutsch, in partnership with developer Urban Expansion, are reviving the historic Queen City Radio building…
Little Kings Cream Ale returns to its Cincinnati roots
Founded in 1958, the story of Little Kings represents only a sliver of Cincinnati’s more than 200-year beer history, but its legacy is a long and complex one. Cincinnati’s brewing business boomed from the 1800s until Prohibition in 1920, when many long-running breweries, bars and saloons shuttered. But Hudepohl Brewing Company, founded in 1885, hung…
