Beer-full Mid-Atlantic Weekend

It's quite the beer-full Presidents' Day weekend, in the mid-Atlantic area.

The Blue-Gray Show —an exhibition of beer memorabilia, known as breweriana— continues through Sunday, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The Blue-Gray Show, which began modestly in 1980, is now the largest such exhibition on the East Coast. There's more information (and directions) at the bluegrayshow.com and on Facebook.

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In Baltimore, Maryland, it's the 7th annual running of the Belgians ... Belgian beers, that is.

Max's TapHouse Belgian Beer Fest features ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX Belgian beers on tap, ONE-HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-TWO bottled Belgian beers, and 6 locally-produced 'Belgian-style' casks served via beer engine handpumps. There is no entrance fee, simply the cost of any beers ordered. The fest runs today from 11am until 2am, and during the same hours on Saturday and Sunday. The pub has 102 draft lines, so not all the beers will be offered at the same time. As well, many of the rarer beers will probably sell out today or early Saturday. To replace them, Max's will add. on Sunday, Belgian-style drafts, produced in the United States.

The pub will offer a Belgian-inspired food menu, and display eight hundred images from over sixty Belgian breweries, prepared by peripatetic beer writer Chuck Cook.

Max's celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, with events throughout the year. The first will be this Saturday with a tapping of 25 to 1, a special 'Belgian-style' beer brewed for the pub by Stillwater Artisianal Ales, which celebrates its own 1 year anniversary.

For more information, go to Max's website www.maxs.com or its Facebook page. The site does not list the draft and bottle list. To peruse that, go to Sandy Mitchell's Beer in Baltimore blog.