Looking to create more of a European feel this year, Oktoberfest Zinzinnati is moving to tree-lined Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove, and organizers are commemorating the move with a first-of-its-kind beer stein produced by Cincinnati’s own Rookwood Pottery. Rookwood President and CEO Micah Carroll says it “just made sense” for the company with 144 years of history in Cincinnati to produce Oktoberfest’s commemorative stein. “Rookwood has been doing steins since the very beginning,” he says, “and we are all so pumped to make this piece. There will be a lot of things unique to Cincinnati in the design. It’s very intentional and fun.”
Oktoberfest Zinzinnati is presented by Samuel Adams and produced by the Cincinnati Regional Chamber. The limited run of 1,000 Rookwood steins will be sold for $50 at festival souvenir booths September 19-22. Rookwood sculptor and master moldmaker Gary Simon designed the stein and says his favorite part is probably the dachshund in lederhosen. He joined Rookwood in 2005 and has designed a number of high-profile commemorative pieces, including Fiona the hippo ornaments, Graeter’s ice cream bowls, and decorative tiles featuring the Roebling Suspension Bridge.
Chamber officials wanted the Oktoberfest stein to include the 2024 festival logo, says Simon, so he designed it to look like wood on one side while having creative freedom with the other side. The dachshund pays homage to the festival’s Running of the Wieners race, and he added a hand-carved hop to sit atop the stein handle. “My family is of German descent, and my wife’s father was a German immigrant,” he says, adding it was fun to connect with his own heritage through the project.
Simon constructed the original mold in Munchen style: tapered in at the top and able to hold a liter of liquid. The ceramic holds heat and cold very well, he says. The finishing glaze will be one of Rookwood’s “self-antiquing” glazes created in the company’s color lab. It will be translucent but become darker in deeper areas of the piece as more layers of glaze are applied, a distinctive look Rookwood has become known for.
Each piece goes through 13 sets of hands before it’s completed, Carroll says, starting with the designer. Each piece passes to staff members who create the molds, pour and cast each stein, clean up individual seams and imperfections, fire the pieces, glaze them, and fire each again—all done in Rookwood’s Over-the-Rhine facility. The team has been busy with other custom pieces of late, Carroll says, including new trophies for the upcoming Cincinnati Open tennis tournament.
“When clients come to our door, we know they are trying to elevate an idea, because Rookwood is an investment,” Carroll says, “A monetary investment, an investment in time. Each piece will get Rookwood’s historic makers mark on the bottom and a mold number, just as we’ve been doing for over 144 years.”