Cincinnati has long been home of the world’s largest Oktoberfest celebration outside of Munich, and it will soon be getting larger. At the 2012 Oktoberfest Zinzinnati festival, the Moerlein Lager House will partner with Germany’s Paulaner Brewery to create the ÜberDrome.

The ÜberDrome will be a massive Oktoberfest tent covering the entire event lawn at Smale Riverfront Park. It will connect with the biergarten at the Moerlein Lager House and will create a space for approximately 3,000 festival goers.

“This ‘über’ fest tent, filled with Munich-style tables and benches, will span the entire length and width of the Schmidlapp Event Lawn, adjacent to the Lager House in Smale Riverfront Park,” said Greg Hardman, Managing Partner of the Moerlein Lager House and CEO of the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company. “The Oktoberfest beer will be flowing, there’ll be endless platters of delicious German dishes and the celebration will go on and on!”

The Moerlein Lager House will add a new element to Cincinnati’s annual Oktoberfest celebration when it introduces the ÜberDrome in 2012. Photograph by Randy A. Simes for UrbanCincy.

Paulaner is a famed German brewery that is well known for its enormous festival tent in the Theresienwiese during Munich’s Oktoberfest. Hardman says that the brewery was looking for a perfect location to present their Munich-style Oktoberfest celebration in Cincinnati, and determined that the central riverfront was just that.

The ÜberDrome will feature German-style pretzels, specially made Hudepohl Beer Wurst and other sausages, wiener schnitzel and strudel plus a wide selection of Paulaner and Moerlein beers including the Paulaner Oktoberfest Weisn, which was the original beer sold at Munich’s Oktoberfest.

The festival tent will also include a performance stage in the center of the space that will feature a variety skits, comedy, games, and music by Bavarian-style bands like Alpen Echos, Pros’t, and Heuboden Musikanten who will fly in from Germany for the event.

“This has been a life’s dream of mine to bring something like this to Cincinnati and, like the Moerlein Lager House itself, we are shooting for the ‘WOW’ factor,” explained Hardman.

Cincinnati’s 2012 Oktoberfest celebrations will take place from Friday, September 21 through Sunday, September 23. The ÜberDrome (map) will be open on these days from 4pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday, and 12pm to 9pm on Sunday.