Flags and Beer: A Baltimore Tradition

Our view: The kindness of a Baltimore brewer plays a small part in the story of America’s national anthem

By Rob Kasper (The Baltimore Sun, 7/3/2011)

During the Fourth of July weekend in Baltimore, there will be plenty of flags flying and beers sipped. This connection between the American flag and Baltimore beer goes back almost 200 years and played a small but interesting role in history.

During the War of 1812, seamstress Mary Pickersgill was hard at work on the large American flag that would eventually fly over Fort McHenry and inspire Francis Scott Key to write the poem that would become The Star Spangled Banner. In the summer of 1814, Washington had just been burned, and the British were turning their attention to Baltimore, then the third largest port in America and home to privateers, a nemesis of the British Navy.

Continue reading “Flags and Beer: A Baltimore Tradition” at The Baltimore Sun.

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