SATURDAY, SEPT. 7 2013 >>>

1. Today's Tacoma Craft Beer Festival features 75 breweries with craft-brew concoctions, including five craft ciders and even a winery for those who don't want to fill up on the brewskis alone. And it's not just the quantity of breweries participating that has taken on the "go big or go home" motto; it's the location as well. Cheney Stadium will host this year's event from noon to 9 p.m. Among this year's beer lineup, drinkers will find local favorites such as 7 Seas Brewing, Engine House No. 9 Brewery, Harmon, Wingman Brewing and others alongside newcomers such as Narrows Brewing, Pacific Brewing & Malting Co and Oregon-based McMenamins, which is slated to move into the Elks Building ... someday. The sheer variety of potions is mindboggling.

2. The Film Forward Festival ends today with a gumbo of melting snow caps, fragile father-daughter relationships, locavorism, Katrina conspiracy theories, and giant prehistoric pigs, or what director Benh Zeitlin calls Beasts of the Southern Wild. Catch the film at 2 p.m. in the Tacoma Public Library downtown branch. A post film discussion will be moderated by Dr. Joanne Clarke Dillman of the University of Washington Tacoma.

3. Whitney Otto's recent novel, Eight Girls Taking Pictures, explores the ambitions, passions, conflicts and desires of eight female photographers throughout the 20th century. Get a better picture of the book at 3 p.m. when she visits Orca Books in Olympia.

4. On tour to promote their second album on Jell Biafra's Alternative Tentacles, Turn Me On Dead Man brings their heavy psychedelia to Olympia. Do we hear a little Pink Floyd meets The Smiths? A landscape of groovy reverb, grounded with blazing licks and tricked out with heavy, loud-ass space jams, people should be stoked to catch them live - especially since the line-up consists of tour mates The Spiral Electric who bring their own brand of psychedelic rock. To round off bill is Olympia's The Big Red Sun and Tacoma's From the Sea. The show kicks off at 9 p.m. in McCoy's.

5. NWCZRadio.com presents "Tacoma Rock Night" with local darlings Big wheel Stunt Show, Cody Foster Army and Blanco Bronco at 9 p.m. in The New Frontier Lounge.

LINK: Saturday, Sept. 7 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area