If you’re a true Ashevillean, a day is always better if you can support two nonprofits instead of one. Altamont Brewing Company will help you pick up donation No. 2 with a fundraising party to benefit the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. And they’ll have about a dozen small batch and specialty taps from regional breweries — including one of the first beers from Burial — so the few who are “just there for the beer” have a reason to drop by as well.

You probably thought you were going to head down to Oskar Blues all the time when the brewery opened in December. They have a jam-packed live music schedule, a stellar beer lineup, and they even have a free trolley to get you there and back. But another week comes and goes and you never quite make it over to the trolley. Let this event make up for your laziness. When Just Brew It ends, walk over to Thirsty Monk for a "mini tap takeover" that will include a few of the one-off brews from the Oskar Blues pilot system (normally only available down in Brevard). And this is Thirsty Monk, so expect some free glassware, too.

The Asheville Beer Week’s first day may only have a few events, but it still starts with a bang. If you thought hanging out at Wedge on any given day was fun, hold on tight. On May 25, the front lot will be taped off and packed with 50 homebrewers serving more than 100 beers. While a minority of folks may think homebrew means substandard beer, most know that here in Asheville half the homebrew club was brewing before you were born. These folks can brew.The beers run the gamut from classic styles to creative concoctions. Past years’ standouts have included everything from fresh Pale Ale and Patersbier to Chocolate Coconut Coffee Stout and soured Saison. Oh, and a handful of these beers are selected by breweries in town — Green Man, Wicked Weed, Burial and Altamont at the time of writing — for brewing on a commercial scale. As if the event couldn’t get any better, the whole shebang is put on by Just Economics, Asheville’s living-wage-advocacy organization. That means when you pay to attend, you’re joining an organization that works hard to make sure people are paid fairly — extremely important work in a town like ours with its high number of service-industry jobs.