"Beer on the Bay" has to be one of the most evocative names for a summer beer festival. The first one happens Saturday at the Pepsi Amphitheater in Erie's Liberty Park.

Host Erie Brewing Co. and more than two dozen other regional craft brewers will be serving samples of their brews, along with food and music by the Duke Sherman Blues Band right on the bayfront.

Brewers include Ohio's Main Street Grille and Brewing and Black Box Brewing as well as Maryland's Hook & Ladder.

Tickets are $35 at the door, or $30 in advance, for each of two sessions: 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. (doors open a half hour earlier for each). Only 2,000 tickets will be sold for each, and some proceeds will benefit the local Humane Society.

From Pittsburgh, you'd come in on Interstate 79 and get on the Bayfront Parkway, where you'll see the Pepsi Amphitheater on the left in about 1 mile (shuttles will be provided from another lot as well).

For more information, call 814-459-7741 or visit www.eriebrewingco.com.

Drink beer, save gorillas

An unusual note for the "Drink Beer, Save World" files:

Denver-area beer fans can help protect the endangered mountain gorilla by drinking Silverback Smoked Porter. The brew is available at Wynkoop Brewing Co. and its sister establishments (Cherry Cricket, Wazee Supper Club, Pearl Street Grill, Phantom Canyon Brewing Co., Gaetano's Italian and Goosetown Tavern). Twenty five percent of sales of the draft-only beer will be donated to the Denver-based Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund. On Oct. 25, Wynkoop sponsors the fifth Gorilla Run fundraiser, which involves hundreds of gorilla-costumed runners in downtown Denver.

But you don't have to enter or buy anything to get in a drawing that day for a vacation for two to Rwanda to see the gorillas; just visit the Web site denvergorillarun.com, which has a link to the gorilla fund at saveagorilla.org. As the Fund's vice president, Frank Keesling, says, "The mountain gorillas are the closest animal link to mankind and they're on the verge of extinction. There are only an estimated 720 of them left in the world and none of them are in captivity."