Beer festivals proliferate as event season launches in earnest, with trenchant and curmudgeonly commentary.

Today and tomorrow is RiverRoots in Madison, and NABC's annual gig pouring better beer for great music.

May 16 & 17 is RiverRoots 2014 in Madison IN, with music, folk arts and Indiana craft beer

NABC will be on hand to share beer vending duties with craft-brewing Hoosier friends: Upland Brewing Company (Bloomington IN), who’ve been there with us from the beginning; Great Crescent Brewing from Aurora; Indianapolis stalwart Sun King; and Power House out of Columbus.

Meanwhile, Steve Coomes previews the Highlands Beer Festival (Saturday, May 17) and Keg Liquors' Fest of Ale (Saturday, May 31), in which we learn that the coming of Deschutes to metro Louisville has trumped the coming of various other saviors. Before I climax, myself, and speaking of the forthcoming Fest of Ale, NABC will debut our Session Station there.

This Sunday (May 18) is the the Louisville Independent Business Alliance's 6th Annual Buy Local Fair in Louisville. It's always a fine event, supporting independent local businesses.

Next Sunday (May 25; Memorial Day weekend) is the Boomtown Ball and Festival in downtown New Albany. The event is previewed in SoIn, a food and entertainment supplement thus far not sequestered behind pay walls.

It bears noting that while neither the city of New Albany nor local media has seen fit to mention the fact, a consortium of downtown food and drink operators will be running the adult beverage area for Boomtown, including Feast BBQ, Irish Exit, JR's Pub, 502 Winery and NABC. It's unclear to me how our participation can be deemed so important to the success of the day that we've been entirely omitted from the vast majority of advance publicity, but then again, I'm not the mayor -- at least yet.