“Support your local scene” has long been a rallying cry in the music community.

Don’t stop there, Ottobar owner Tecla Tesnau said. Support your local brewery, too.

Tesnau said she’s passionate about pushing local beers, which she described as a form of artistry, at the concert venue on North Howard Street in Charles Village. Today, she said, people take it for granted that they can walk into a bar and sample local products.

Earlier this year, Tesnau said, she approached Union Craft Brewing about collaborating on a Kölsch, an ale that’s brewed at cooler temperatures and originated in Cologne, Germany. She said the brewery was “100% on board.”

The collaboration comes as the Ottobar is celebrating its 28th anniversary, which includes a free event on Saturday near the Inner Harbor. The release also coincides with Oktoberfest.

“It just was like a perfect storm of serendipity,” Tesnau said.

Ottobeer is easy drinking and approachable, said Chris Attenborough, director of creative engagement at Union Craft Brewing.

The brewery wanted to create a beer that was not heavy in alcohol by volume so people could responsibly drink it at a show, Attenborough said.

The head brewer, Dean Hamilton, came up with the recipe.

The label features the colors of the Maryland flag, the classic Ottobar logo of a cat with a martini, and the tagline “Beer flavored beer.”

Tesnau said she and her husband, Kurt, wanted to incorporate something fun and irreverent into the design. They each went into separate rooms in their house, came up with 25 funny lines and picked the best ones.

Three different versions of the can exist, and each contains a different “lore drop.”

Here’s a sample: “The ghost that haunts Ottobar is of a drummer who was never paid, but is still desperately trying to redeem his drink tickets.”

“The one-offs are fun,” Attenborough said. “It keeps the creativity going on our team.”

The Ottobar is continuing to celebrate its anniversary on Saturday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. with a free event at the Inner Harbor Amphitheater.

Ottobar Live features a lineup of six local bands: Pinkshift, PLRLS, Outcalls, the Bali Lamas, Pearl and Chromafix. That’s along with food trucks as well as a punk rock flea market.

People can park for $10 at 101 S. Calvert St. (Premium Parking lot P2331) with the promo code BXB25.

The event is part of Baltimore by Baltimore, a series that Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore started in 2022 to highlight the city’s creative communities.

A producer who’s considered a community or cultural leader curates each show, said Leanna Wetmore, director of events and programs for Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, which provides all the infrastructure for the series.

Tesnau has a lot of connections to the punk and rock scenes, Wetmore said. Organizers thought she would be perfect to help represent that specific culture in Baltimore.

Almost immediately, Tesnau mentioned how hardcore has experienced a resurgence, Wetmore said. Then they went to the free benefit show that Turnstile played in May at Wyman Park Dell.

“Oh, yeah,” Wetmore said she realized. “Hardcore is having a resurgence.”

Tesnau described the event as a bit of a homecoming. Her first job when she moved to Baltimore was at The Fudgery in Harborplace.

“The harbor is all about history. It’s seen hundreds of years of history,” Tesnau said. “And now I feel my mission statement is for people to really hear the history.”

The bands play a mix of genres. Tesnau said “it’s a very Ottobar lineup.”

A lot of the vendors, she said, are also multidisciplinary artists who play in bands.

“We’re going to make it weird and subversive: Take the dive bar aspect of Ottobar and bring it to a tourist destination,” she said. “It’s going to be something pretty special.”