Beer snob? Check. Beer Fest snob? Check.

I’ve already established that I’m a craft beer snob.

If you need further proof, you can read this week’s Brews News column, which features a number of local releases and information about upcoming regional beer festivals.

But let me clarify, briefly:

My part-time job: Beer news columnist for Mountain Xpress alternative newsweekly.

My job description (as far as I can tell): Local craft beer cheerleader. Beer news chaser. Photographer of people drinking beer, loving beer, and acting up with craft beer.

This blog: The scoop on beers I like and don’t like–whether they be local, regional, or national. My personal take on beer festivals, beer education, and more. My intimate brewgasms. And links to my part-time paid work, in case you’re interested, and to help drive traffic to Mountain Xpress.

Got it?

Good.

If you want, you can go check out some of the photos I took at last Saturday’s Baseball & Beers Festival here in Asheville on Mountain Xpress’ blog.

There are slightly obscene photos of me vamping with this man-sized Gaelic Ale here.

And now I’ll tell you what I really thought about this festival.

It was pretty lame.

I didn’t attend the inaugural Baseball & Beers last year, but I hear that it attracted more of a crowd than this year’s fest. This one seemed sparse. I’m not sure if that’s because there wasn’t lots of advance advertising or because it’s a time of year when lots of folks are on vacation — or a bit of both.

I  think this Festival has the potential to draw more beer lovers and be a fun event. The music was pretty good (though I only really listened to Soulgrass Rebellion, who are cute in a scruffy, growly kind of way). And I hear the food, provided by Wild Wings and integrating local beers into the cooking was good (i.e., wings with hot sauce spiked with local beer).

Soulgrass Rebellion doing their thang.

But not all the local and regional breweries were represented. Even though one of the beneficiaries of the event was the Asheville Brewers Alliance, not all members of the ABA were pouring their beers. And the non-local beers were poured by volunteers and distributors, not by brewers.

Distributors are great because they bring us beers that we might not get to try otherwise from faraway places like the magical state of Oregon. But at a beer fest, I want to talk to brewers or, at least, to people who know and understand craft beer.

And folks, Anheuser-Busch products don’t count as craft beers. Period. Step away from the fricking Shock Top. If you advertise an event as a “craft” festival, stick with true craft beers.

Finally, I found the layout to be disjointed. It was a longish walk between the two areas of action, and one of the music stages was set up in the bullpen. People seemed to feel weird about walking down into the bullpen, so the musicians there were kind of stranded in no man’s land, playing to, well, dirt.

If there’s not going to be baseball at Baseball & Beers, at least put the fest out on McCormick field. I think field repairs would be minimum, especially if the fest was moved to a time of year when the Tourists aren’t playing (early spring seems open for a local beer fest). Get organized farther in advance, so you can pull in all the regional breweries and, perhaps, more Southeastern breweries, who might not be on your distributor’s catalog, but who would like a chance to promote their brews.

The highlight of the Fest, as far as I could tell, was the giant Jenga-type game that Asheville Brewing Company President Mike Rangel brought for festival-goers to play.

Giant Jenga rocked.

Asheville is Beer City, USA. Let’s rise to the challenge and make every craft beer event great, y’all.

Prosit.