It seems like this festival always brings rain, either during or just before, and since the field at Union Mills Homestead doesn't drain well at all, rain turns it into mud. For example, in 2008, people stood ankle-deep in mud, and all the cars had to be towed out because no one could get any traction. Here are some photos from that year:

Mud wrestling.

Anyway, this year it rained so much a few days before that the field would still be saturated by festival day, so rather than cancel (which has happened at least once in the past), it was moved from the Union Mills Homestead to the Carroll County Farm Museum, whose field drains better.

There is always a homebrew contest associated with this festival, so early that morning I drove to the home of my friend Steve, who runs the contest, and his wife Michelle, and the three of us went to the venue. Judging took place from 9:00 AM until around midday. I got to judge sours.

Best-of-show judging.

Then it was on to the festival, the first one I'd been to in two years (due to Covid). There were 14 breweries (that I counted; there might have been more), which isn't many, but they were all Maryland breweries. I sampled:

1. Peabody Heights Astrodon
2. Full Tilt Sticky Stuff
3. BC Brewery Leche del Diablo
4. Monocacy Ethereal Dreams
5. Steinhardt Mo Hops
6. Farmacy Raid the Bag
7. Johansson's Hazy IPA
8. Ruhlman Black Knight
9. Pub Dog Tart Cherry
10. 1623 Nordic Haze
11. Peabody Heights Tripel
12. Oliver Bmore Hazy
13. Flood Zone 3NINE3
14. BC Brewery Horseless Headman