Max’s Taphouse Rare & Obscure Festival (it's a hike from the parking?)

If you like your craft beer hard to find, impossible to replace, and just a little weird, mark your calendar. Max’s Taphouse Rare & Obscure Festival returns to Fells Point October 16 – 18, 2026, bringing three days of unusual, limited, and downright fascinating beers to Baltimore.

Taphouse doors open at 11:30 a.m. each day, with the festival free and open to guests 21+.
Discover Beers You Won’t Find Everywhere Else

The Rare & Obscure Festival is all about beers that fall outside the ordinary. Each year, Max’s digs deep to find rare, experimental, small-batch, and hard-to-find beers from breweries near and far. The 2026 lineup will feature approximately a dozen rare and obscure draft beers, with selections ranging from unusual ingredients and experimental brewing techniques to beers that are simply incredibly difficult to find on draft.

Previous festivals have featured beers brewed with ingredients including leaf tobacco, blue honeysuckle haskap berries, cranberry blood, and smoked malt. What will make it onto the taps in 2026?
Preview of draft list as of 8/8 (and yes, this is really early; they’re just starting to come in and we are too pumped to gate keep):
Firestone Walker 29th Anniversary
Birrificio Italiano/De La Senne/Firestone Walker/Privite Landbrauerei Schonram/Bad Seed/Verdant Brewing Sorriso Brut Lager
Founders KBS 2022
Harviestoun Old Engine Oil
Rare selections will be available in 5 oz. and 10 oz. pours, making it easy to sample several beers throughout the weekend.

“Every year, we go digging for beers you just don’t see on draft; stuff with a story, a wild ingredient, or a once-in-a-lifetime taste,” says Jason Scheerer, General Manager of Max’s Taphouse. “This is the weekend we pour the weird, the wonderful, and the impossible to find.”

Come thirsty. The weird stuff is waiting. Cheers.