Racks By The Tracks 2008

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9006321

Saturday I got a call from my good friend Erich who wanted to know if I was heading downtown for Racks by the Tracks. My first question was "What the crap is that?" After I got off the phone I pulled up gotricites.com and got the details. A BBQ festival with some breweries from across the NC border. I was interested, so I called up my buddy Kevin and we headed over. I like the idea of what is happening.

Here are my likes...

Good selection of breweries for a first time thing. French Broad from Asheville, Catawba Valley from NC, Depot St from Jonesborough and about 9 others where there. Very nice.

I didn't eat, but there was a larger selection of ribs than beer. Kevin said there was some good stuff. If I had not already eaten and hadn't had ribs the night before, I would have been much more interested.

There was music. Any of these deals needs music. As we walked up, Sweet Home Alabama was being played by the first band. I am not sure who any of the bands were, but it was nice to have that background music. The 2nd band, a bluegrass band, sounded like Tommy Shaw singing with Ricky Scaggs...interesting, if not anything else.

Now for the stuff I want to change next year...

More beer offerings. But this cannot happen until they change the situation with the way they handle paying to get in. It was $20 and 5 cans (which went to Second Harvest Food Bank) or $25. You were given a tasting glass and 15 tickets. The beer and food vendors were to take tickets when you got something from them. 1 ticket per beer or a couple tickets for 3 ribs or something like that. This is the first thing I ever saw like this. Perhaps pay $25 to get in next year and do not do tickets for the beer. Tickets for the ribs is fine because they can then be used to determine the best ribs in some way. However, I have never been to a fest that had tickets and many of the brewers felt the same way.

I know we are in Kingsport, but can we have more than Bluegrass? I realize that the 1st band was some sort of country/rock cover band, but the next 2 acts were bluegrass. 1 is enough. You don't have to go raggae like Knoxville did last year, but something besides BG would be good.

ADVERTISING!!!! Saturday morning was the first I heard of this. There needs to be more advertising for something like that. 1 TV spot played during prime time would have been nice to see. I realize this is the first year and probably a trial run for Kingsport, but I would have liked to have known a few days in advance.

With all that aside, we had a great time. We saw our new friends Anthony and Stacy out there and a good time was had. The highlights of the day were the French Broad Marzen Amber Lager (I do love a good Octoberfest style beer) and the French Broad Gateway Kolsch Style Ale. Great beers. Of course we enjoyed the Firewater IPA from Catawba Valley as well.

Here's to next year and I hope they pay more attention to things like the Knoxville Brewer's Jam and Asheville's Brewgrass festival (yes I know...bluegrass, so maybe it could work Kingsport).