The 2017 edition of L.A. Beer Week is coming up on June 17. I have already tried to cajole you into getting tickets for the kick-off festival in past Brew & You posts but today, I provide 5 quick tips on how to best navigate the the week plus of LABW9.

1. Follow the #LABW9 hashtag and bookmark the L.A. Beer Week website. This is the best bet to find out about coming events and special beers.

2. Buy two bottles of this year’s Unity brew: one for yourself and one to give to someone new to craft beer. Make it a tradition to introduce L.A. Beer Week to a friend via a bottle of delicious local beer made by El Segundo Brewing this year with help from brewers across the city.

3. Visit your closest L.A. brewery to you and a L.A. brewery far from you AND a L.A. brewery that you have never visited before.

4. Use the gig economy or mass transit to get you from place to place. Better to be safe than sorry.

5. Make sure you support local taprooms, local bottle shops, and local bars.

I will highlight specific events that should not be missed in the coming weeks. Get ready for a week+ of L.A. beer fun.

For the BEER OF THE WEEK, we head to Firestone Walker – The Propagator where this particular beer began. West Side Beavo is a one-off collaboration by brewmasters Logan Plant of London’s Beavertown Brewery and Firestone Walker brewmaster Matt Brynildson, jump started from a friendship started at the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest. The beer that would become West Side Beavo was first brewed earlier this year by Plant, Brynildson and Propagator brewer Ben Maushardt at his R&D brewhouse in Venice, California. Then the final recipe for this new IPL (India Pale Lager) was fine-tuned and scaled up so that the beer could be brewed at Firestone Walker’s main brewery in Paso Robles. A limited number of colorfully labeled cans will be available this month.

Your HOMEWORK is to head to the beer cellar. In this case it is literally the beer cellar of Chad Hazen one of the partner’s in King Harbor Brewing. This Chad’s Beer Cellar on June 10 will have over 250 rare and hard to find beers on hand for craft beer fanatics to taste without traveling the country and spending tons of money on these “whales.” The best part of the event is that 100% of each ticket sold goes to help the Richstone Family Center in Hawthorne.

Find more of Sean Inman’s writing on his blog, Beer Search Party.