How does $5 in free produce sound?

That's the deal when you take advantage of the rare rebate in Sunday's coupon inserts.

It's a great opportunity to score some savings on grocery items, such as produce, that almost never offer coupons.

The annual Brew Durham Homebrew Festival will be Saturday, May 4.

There will be more than 50 beers to taste from local home brewers plus a special one-time-only beer from Durham's Bull City Burger and Brewery. Food will be provided by Mateo, Monuts Donuts, Toast, Geer Street Garden, Dos Perros, Loaf and Daisy Cakes.

There are two tasting sessions: 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. Tickets cost $35 and can be purchased online at BrewDurham4.eventbrite.com.

The event is being held at Beltline Station, 923 Franklin St., near the Scrap Exchange, which is the beneficiary of the event. More info: brewdurham.weebly.com

From John Frank, our Pintful columnist:

Lob questions at six local brewers with beers in hand and you’re sure to get a lively discussion about the craft beer industry.

As part of N.C. Beer Month, the Durham-based All About Beer magazine gathered such a panel last week to take craft beer enthusiasts behind the scenes.

North Carolina brewers are still riding a high from the national Craft Brewers Conference in March, where the state’s booming scene received quite a feting. “We were the stars,” said Brad Wynn, the brewmaster at Big Boss Brewery in Raleigh.

Find out the brewers' biggest surprises, answers to the saturation question, the scoop on North Carolina hops and the next big thing in this week's Pintful column here.

Here are a few upcoming wine and beer dinners across the Triangle:

Tuscan wine dinner at Washington Duke
The Fairview Dining Room at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club is hosting a Tuscan wine dinner at 7 p.m. April 16.
The menu includes five courses: house made coppa ham with black truffle on a crostini with tomato gelee, volcanic salt-crusted pike with roasted green peppers, capers, tomato confit and rosemary; herb-roasted rabbit loin with farro risotto, grilled baby squash and fig gastrique; braised veal and English pea stratta with sautéed arugula and a black garlic veal reduction; and for dessert, a selection of sweets and coffee.
All wine pairings are being chosen by Sarah Pedrali of Terra Moretti Wines.
The dinner costs $59 per person. For reservations, call 919-493-6699.

18 Seaboard chef hosts fundraising dinner
Jason Smith and his wife, Lauren, are hosting a fundraising dinner to benefit SAFEchild, a child abuse prevention agency.
At 7 p.m. April 26, the couple will host 40 guests at their home for a five-course dinner with wine pairings. The meal costs $100 per person. For more information or to make a reservation, please email events@18seaboard.com or call 919-861-4318.
The Smiths are longtime supporters of SAFEchild. The couple served as community chairs for the 2012 Believe in SAFEchild campaign. Jason's stepmother, Rachel Smith, was a founding supporter and later served as SAFEchild board president. Info: safechildnc.org.

Carolina Brewing Co. beer dinner
As part of the month long N.C. Beer Month, 42nd Street Oyster Bar is hosting a five-course beer dinner at 6 p.m. April 21.
The menu includes a braised pork brisket with a Cheerwine barbecue sauce paired with a Nut Brown Ale; a green tomato gazpacho with Cajun-fried oysters paired with a Spring Bock; an applewood-smoked duck breast with mesculin greens and a blackberry vinaigrette paired with a Pale Ale; blackened rockfish and shrimp and grits with roasted asparagus and wild mushroom jus paired with an India Pale Ale; and for dessert, an espresso flan garnished with dark chocolate and served with an Imperial Stout. Tickets cost $59. To make a reservation, call 919-831-2811.
To see other N.C. Beer Month events, go to ncbeermonth.com.

This post is by John Frank, our craft beer columnist:

WINSTON-SALEM Evan Ruff traveled three hours from South Carolina to sleep on the sidewalk outside Foothills Brewing on one of the coldest nights of the year.

Behind him , Chris Ransom of Boone huddled close to a camping stove, stirring hash browns and sausage for shivering friends from Tennessee and Alabama.

And toward the back, where the line stretched about 200 people long, Jason Wirgas and Ashley Duman stood bundled in 20-degree temperatures after driving 11 hours straight through the night from Tampa, Fla.

All for one thing: Sexual Chocolate.

The provocatively named, award-winning Imperial Stout from Foothills is one of the most coveted beers made in North Carolina.

Hundreds of craft beer enthusiasts pilgrimaged from across the Southeast Saturday for the beer's once-a-year bottle release at the brewpub in downtown Winston-Salem. The 22-ounce bottles cost $15 and typically sell out in hours. The Internet re-sale value tops $60.

One of the most sought-after beers brewed in North Carolina debuts Friday at Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem. 

The first keg of Sexual Chocolate, a rich Russian Imperial Stout, is tapped at 5 p.m. at the brewery's pub downtown and once the bar closes at 2 a.m. the diehards begin camping out overnight to buy 22 ounce bottles that go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The beer won silver at the World Beer Cup in 2010 and its sister, Bourbon Barrel Aged Sexual Chocolate, took gold the same year at the Great American Beer Festival.

The bottles are $15 a piece and limited to four per person. They sell out within a couple hours.

Four Triangle-based food and beverage companies were honored in the third annual Good Food Awards competition.

Durham's Fullsteam Brewery won for its first frost beer. Raleigh's Escazu Artisan Chocolates won in the confections contest with its dark chocolate basil ganache. Alamance County's Blessed Earth Farm won in the pickle category with its summer squash curry relish. And the Hillsborough-based Farmer's Daughter Brand won in the preserves contest with its rosey strawberry rhubarb preserves.

Congratulations to all the winners.

The Good Food Awards are an annual competition that recognizes tasty foods and beverages made by socially-responsible and sustainable food producers.

To see the complete list of winners announced last weekend, go to goodfoodawards.org.

For beer lovers on a budget, SaveOnBrew.com is a website worth a look.

Updated daily, the site lists sale prices on beer at more than 50,000 retail locations across the country, eliminating the need to thumb through all those sales circulars hunting for the best price on your favorite brand.

From Blue Moon and Bud to Yuengling, SaveOnBrew.com has got you covered on advertised sale prices.

But you're out of luck if you're looking for the best beer prices at retailers such as Target, Walmart and the warehouse clubs, which typically don't include that information in their ads.

In the Triangle, you can find advertised beer prices for Harris Teeter, Lowes Foods, Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly and Walgreens on SaveOnBrew.com, though because of a glitch in data entry the beer prices for Lowes Foods aren't included this week.

The site is simple to use.

There are two home brew beer drinking events on the horizon for good causes.

First, Brew Durham 3 is this Saturday to benefit The Scrap Exchange.

Folks will have more than 60 beers to taste from the Triangle's home brewing community, including Santa's Breakfast", an oatmeal coffee stout with cinnamon and cloves by brewer Dan Caswell and "Monkey Punch" by brewer Michael Mayhew, a sour ale brewed with apricots, currants and dark brown sugar.

Brew Durham will have two tasting sessions: 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. Tickets cost $30 and can be purchased online at brewdurham3.eventbrite.com/. Designated driver tickets are available for $5. The event will happen at The Cordoba Center for the Arts at 923 Franklin St., Durham.

Second, tickets are available for the second annual Homebrew for Hunger festival on Nov. 17 in Chapel Hill.

Twenty-five home brewers will be serving their beers, including a chocolate pumpkin porter and a juniper ale. They will be joined by local craft breweries Fullsteam, Carolina Brewery and Bull City Burger & Brewery. Beer distributor Harris, Inc. will be pouring beer from other local breweries, including Aviator, Big Boss, Triangle and Lonerider brewing companies. The event raises money for PORCH, a hunger relief organization in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The event has two sessions from noon-3 p.m. and 4-7 p.m. Tickets cost $20 in advance and can be purchased online at www.homebrewforhunger.com or at Fifth Season Gardening stores in Carrboro or Raleigh. If any tickets are left, those will be sold at the door for $25. The event will be held at West End Public, an event space at 462 W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill.
 

Yard House, a national restaurant chain with 140 beers on tap, is opening Sunday in the Captrust Tower, a 17-story building in the North Hills complex in North Raleigh.

The chain has more than three dozen locations across the country, primarily in Southern California. This is its first location in North Carolina.  

The move means North Hills is becoming a destination for Triangle craft beer lovers. Yard House restaurant joins World of Beer, a beer-centric bar that opened in the same complex last year. For more information about Yard House, go to www.yardhouse.com.