For more than a decade, the volunteers running the Acoustic Brew have given national and local folk acts and aspiring musicians an outlet in Centre County.

The Acoustic Brew will celebrate its 12th anniversary at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in State College High School South, 650 Westerly Parkway, starting in the cafeteria with a potluck dinner, then moving into the auditorium for a concert and jam session.

"It's pretty unusual in terms of concert series," Mel DeYoung, an Acoustic Brew board member and volunteer, said. "Usually only one or two people do everything in a concert series like this one, but here a lot of people are involved, and everybody kind of takes ownership over it."

The number of volunteers working together to make the Acoustic Brew run smoothly keeps the event strong and intimate at the same time, DeYoung said.

This weekend's show will bring out local Celtic group Callanish and headliner Tolins' Bluegrass Revue. Both bands have played the Acoustic Brew before, and both said the audience and atmosphere keep them coming back to play again.

"When they have it in the Center for Well-Being in Lemont, it's a pretty unique setting," lead singer and guitarist Andy Tolins said. "There's no amplification at all. It's like a very live living room ... Like doing a house concert."

Even though this weekend's concert is in a larger venue than the Center for Well-Being, it has one big advantage over its smaller counterpart: There is more than enough room to accommodate everyone, DeYoung said.

"Shows are usually sold out when we're at the smaller venue," DeYoung said. "The March show [at the Center for Well-Being] is sold out already."

Callanish, which will open for Tolins' Bluegrass Revue, is a six-piece Celtic band that plays all over Pennsylvania. The band's goal is to make music that sounds as close to the original intentions of the music's creators as possible, band member Patty Lambert said.

The feeling of community at the Acoustic Brew makes it a great place to play, Lambert added.

"It's always a wonderful audience," Lambert said. "The Acoustic Brew is made up of a group of people who are really in tune with each other and are very aware of what good folk music is."

While Tolins also performs elsewhere in State College on a fairly regular basis, he has played at the Acoustic Brew since the series began, and feels comfortable trying new things while performing there.

"A goal I aspire to is to live up to the standards of the folk community in State College, and I try to come up with something a little different than I did before," Tolins said. "Sometimes I fall on my face trying something I'm not ready to play yet, when I don't quite have it under my fingers yet. Sometimes I crash and burn. Hopefully that won't happen this time."

Tickets for Saturday's Acoustic Brew are $12 and are available at Webster's Bookstore Café, 128 S. Allen St., and University Book Centre, 206 E. College Ave.