Craft Beer, County Fair and Star-Spangled Fun

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By Jake Russell

The Annapolis Craft Beer and Music Festival and Anne Arundel County Fair make their annual return while Baltimore cele ates the War of 1812 bicentennial style.

Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium welcomes back the Annapolis Craft Beer and Music Festival along with unlimited – that’s right, unlimited – tastings of more than 120 beers from 45 regional and national eweries from 12-6 p.m. Saturday. Jeremy Ragsdale Voice Studio, Sparks, Raymond & McCoy, Lilly and Mudd, Michael McHenry and Tribe, and the Rockcreek Steel Drum "Experience" with Kevin Martin will be performing live music on The Pilsner Stage.

The festival will have informative seminars and lots of vendors from local shops.

General admission tickets are $40, designated driver tickets are $20, tickets for attendees ages 13-20 are $10, and children 12 and under are free if accompanied by a paying adult.

For the 62nd year, the Anne Arundel County Fair will continue to delight families through Sunday at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds in Crownsville.

The fair has everything from the fun to the relaxing and the wacky to the creative. Guests look forward to events like the pig races, antique tractor pull, kids activities, live music, animal shows, archery contests, scarecrow making contests, children’s tug-of-war contest featuring the Bowie Baysox mascot Louie, pie eating contest, wool spinning, and much more. Admission to the fair is $6 for ages 16 and over, $4 for kids 8-15, and free for kids 7 and under.

The city of Baltimore is cele ating the bicentennial of the famous War of 1812 and for good reason. The Star-Spangled Banner was penned by Francis Scott Key during one of the most important battles of the war when British ships were bombarding Fort McHenry.

The week-long “Star-Spangled Spectacular” includes a multitude of events going on throughout Charm City.

“Bicentennial of Our National Anthem” will take place at Pier Six Pavilion on Friday at 7 p.m. The musical show will be co-hosted by John Lithgow and Jordin Sparks and features performances by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Kristin Chenoweth, Melissa Etheridge, Denyce Graves-Montgomery, Little Big Town, Pentatonix, Smokey Robinson, Kenny Rogers, and Train.

The Blue Angels will take part in the cele ation with practices over the Inner Harbor today and Friday and actual performances taking place Saturday and Sunday.

There will be fireworks, more than 30 ships from seven countries available for public viewing, and lots of other fun and patriotic events throughout the week. View the full schedule of the week’s events here.

The Maryland Terrapins will also be paying homage to the 200th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner by wearing special uniforms against West Virginia on Saturday at Byrd Stadium. The helmet logo will feature an American flag in the shape of Fort McHenry with the script of the national anthem as the helmet background. The white jerseys will feature red and blue on top of the shoulders and Star-Spangled Banner script on the sleeves, the word “Triumph” on the back nameplate, and the pants emblazoned with the phrase “Conquer We Must.”

Take a look at some other fun weekend activities:

To view more events occurring this weekend, please owse our online calendar. Be sure to also follow What’s Up? on Twitter and like us on Facebook.