The Old West End is a beautiful historic neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. Comprising over 25 city blocks the tree-lined neighborhood is home to one of the largest concentrations of Victorian, Edwardian, Queen Anne, Romanesque, Arts & Crafts, Neoclassical, and Colonial Revival homes in the country. Every June the people that live in the neighborhood organize the Old West End Festival. The festival is a weekend event and brings thousands of Toledoeans to this beautiful neighborhood. It is a fundraiser for the Old West End Association, who are “dedicated to improving the quality of life” in the neighborhood. This year was the 44th consecutive year that the festival had been held. Among the activities at the festival were home tours, the King Wamba Parade, a 5k walk/run, a juried art competition, food vendors, and a beer and wine garden. It was the latter of these that interested me. One of my Facebook friends, Old West End resident Brad Arps, was the Beer and Wine Garden Chair and so when he put a call out for volunteers I decided to contribute a couple of hours of my time. My wife Lori agreed to join me. We had both volunteered at the Glass City Beer Festival back in March and were keen to do so some beer-related volunteer work again. We do not live in the Old West End and really have no connection with the neighborhood. But strong and vibrant neighborhoods, wherever they are in the city, benefit all of us who call Toledo home and so we felt that this was a worthwhile activity.

There were two breweries represented in the beer and wine garden, both local – Maumee Bay Brewing Company and Black Cloister Brewing Company. Maumee Bay had four beers on tap, including their King Wamba Festival beer which is a dry-hopped German Pilsner specially brewed for the weekend. Black Cloister had three brews available – Katie (a Belgian style saison), Knight in White Satin (a witbier), and Casilda of Toledo (a Vienna lager). The Casilda was a replacement for the Helles Angel, a Helles lager that had sold out the previous evening. Lori and I were assigned to the Black Cloister booth. Our job was simple – pour beer for thirsty festival goers. I spend so much time as a customer in bars that it was fun to work the other side of the bar. I appreciated the fact that all the beer available to festival goers were from local craft brewers. No Budweiser and  no Miller Lite. Lori and I had the noon-2pm shift on a Sunday so it was not too busy. This gave us a great opportunity to chat with customers. Only a small number of them seemed to know which beer they wanted when they saw what the Black Cloister had to offer. Most did not and had questions about the three beers. I had tried them all numerous times and had spent so much time sitting at the bar gazing at the beer menu in the Black Cloister taproom that I was close to knowing the beer descriptions verbatim. But it was fun to play the ‘expert’ and tell people about the different beers and guide them towards a selection that I hoped would most suit both their mood and palate. I also found myself trying to predict which beer a person would choose as they approached the booth.   While hardly scientific women seemed to prefer the witbier while men tended to go for the saison or the Vienna Lager. Manning the booth also provided a great opportunity to promote craft beer in general and the Black Cloister in particular and to encourage folks who had not been there yet to pay a visit. As those of you who read this blog know I am a huge fan of the Black Cloister and have no problem recommending it to others.

After our shift was over Lori and I toured a couple of the homes in the neighborhood including the beautiful Edward D. Libbey house. Lori then went off to a high school graduation party and I headed over to the Old West End home of my friend Bill Thomas where the Radiation Blues Band (with Bill on violin) were playing on his porch. A great way to end a great day.