Beer Wars tonight

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Tonight is finally the night for Beer Wars, a documentary about the rise of micro-brewers and the battle against the two 800-pound gorillas — SAB and Anheuser-Busch.

For some reason, the film is being shown in theaters for one night only and at only one time, 7 p.m. Theaters showing it include AMCs in Olathe, Leawood and North Kansas City, Cinemark on the Plaza, Cinemark in Merriam and the Regal Kansas City 18 Cinemas

at Casino Station.

After the film, there is a live Web cast with the brewers in the film moderated by Ben Stein. Tickets are $15 here.

All right, that’s taken care of. Now let’s talk about the film. As one beer writer asked, how many non-beer nerds will go to this? I’m wondering the opposite — are any beer nerds planning to go? At first the film received a lot of good publicity, but many in the fickle craft beer community have turned on it.

One reason is because the breweries portrayed as underdogs, like Boston Beer Company and Dogfish Head, aren’t really that small. Boston Beer is the fourth-biggest brewer in the country and Dogfish Head was the only brewery to be named one of the fastest-growing private companies by Inc. Magazine. Also, filmmaker Anat Baron isn’t really known for her craft beer credentials. Before the movie she helped launch Mike’s Hard Lemonade, hardly a small craft brand.

Local beer blogs have been mostly negative. A Beer Sort of Blog pretty much disowned her free passes. Home brewer Dan from Gone Mild headlined his last post “Backing away from Beer Wars.”

But hey, the screening already sold out in Boston so it must have some fans.