“We had a very good Friday night, one of the best we’ve had, because of good weather,” Klaus Giese, the event’s chairman said Saturday. Giese estimated between 4,000 and 5,000 people turned out for the chance to chow down on a brat or cream puff while listening to live German music.
Ron Colwell, 50, of Kentucky, said he spends most of his weekends in August and September attending Oktoberfest celebrations throughout southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky. He was sipping a drink from an authentic German beer stein at Saturday’s event.
“It’s Oktoberfest season so any weekend is a good weekend,” Colwell said. “(This Oktoberfest) is smaller, it’s not as big and spread out, it’s homier, more like a neighborhood party.
Hundreds of families typically turnout to Oktoberfest, said Rita Ringel, the association’s president. She said she enjoys manning the face painting booth for the hundreds of children who attend Oktoberfest.
“It’s a big, family event,” Ringel said. “This is a big German area.
“We’re a little smaller than the ones in Cincinnati … but it’s friendlier. We have people from Cincinnati who come here and say ‘I come because it has a warmer feeling here.’”
Proceeds will support the association, Ringel said.
Rusty and Ashley Weneck of Milford said they have been attending Oktoberfest events in the region for five years but Sunday’s stop was their first Liberty Home Association Oktoberfest.
“It’s better than some of them, especially the big ones like down in Cincinnati,” Rusty Weneck said, after dining on metts, brats, schnitzel, sauerkraut balls and cabbage rolls. “I just like being in the wooded environment … out in the trees and nature instead of downtown on the city streets.”
Tim Brown of Norwood, who attended with father-in-law Kent Taylor of Hamilton, said the food at the Liberty Home Association’s Oktoberfest is better than the others he’s attended throughout the region, as well as a well-known dining spot over the Ohio River.
“The schnitzel was great,” he said. “We go to the Hofbräuhaus all the time and this is right up there. Better than that. It’s really good.”
Karl Giessler, 78, of Hamilton, co-founded the event with his wife and has been volunteering ever since, described turnout for the event as “tremendous.”
“All we need is some more members,” Giessler said. “The elderly members are passing away and the young generation, we do get a few of them. Let’s hope that we get some more in the future.”
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