Brewers, beer lovers descend on Carroll Creek for Maryland Craft Beer Festival

Ceoli Jacoby, The Frederick News-Post, Md.
·2 min read

Dozens of breweries from across the state, including a few not yet open for business, showcased their most innovative products at the 2024 Maryland Craft Beer Festival on Saturday at Carroll Creek Linear Park in Frederick.

The annual event is hosted by the Brewers Association of Maryland (BAM), a trade association representing the craft beer industry, in partnership with the tourism group Visit Frederick.

Kelly Dudeck, the executive director of BAM, said in an interview on Saturday that 58 breweries participated in this year’s festival. Between them, the breweries had more than 200 beers on tap.

Dudeck said that prior to the pandemic, the festival attracted approximately 5,000 people each year.

While the number of attendees has not quite rebounded, roughly 3,000 people purchased tickets ahead of this year’s festival. Dudeck said she expects that number to grow once walk-ups are factored in.

A few of the breweries represented Saturday have yet to officially open their brick-and-mortar businesses.

Andrew Superczynski is the owner and head brewer at Old Barn Brewery in Anne Arundel County. He plans to hold a soft opening for the business on May 25, with Saturday’s festival serving as a jumping-off point.

His brother, Stephen Superczynski, said in an interview that opening the business has been a years-long project held up by what he said was regulatory uncertainty surrounding “farm breweries” in Anne Arundel County.

Now that the regulations governing farms that also produce their own alcoholic beverages have been updated, Stephen Superczynski said, the business offers beer made with home-grown hops and fruits from Super Produce of Arnold, which is also run by Andrew Superczynski.

Fruit-flavored beverages were favored by friends Cat Ghrist and Becca Bush of Glen Burnie. Both said they had attended the Frederick craft beer festival in prior years.

Of all the drinks they sampled, Ghrist said her favorite was a passion fruit hard lemonade offered by the Montgomery County-based Waredaca Brewing Company. Bush said she liked the pineapple lemonade cream seltzer from the Frederick-based Midnight Run Brewing.

Rich Cauble, one of the co-founders of Midnight Run, said he first became interested in brewing when he tried a beer with notes of banana and clove.

Cauble, who has a background in the culinary arts, said the business focuses on producing beers that are strong in both flavor and alcohol content.

While Midnight Run started out as a small home-brewing operation, it has now expanded into a full-blown tap room on North East Street in downtown Frederick.

“It was just a hobby that kind of got out of control,” Cauble said.