The Vie Side: Open Art, Gumbo Fest, Puppies and Pints

New Orleans on Tap

SATURDAY / Puppies and Pints: The Bulldog supports the LA/SPCA with the New Orleans On Tap Beer Festival this Saturday in City Park, rescheduled from last month due to inclement weather. Featuring over 200 beers for the sampling, live music, and food, it’s a delicious and fun way to assuage your guilty conscience when the Sarah McLachlan commercial with the sad puppies comes on. But seriously, these animals do need human help, and what a better way to do it than blowing a months-worth of less-than-a-dollar-a-day all on one Saturday afternoon in exchange for microbrews and imports. Sampling tickets are available pre-sale and at the event. City Park, 1-6 PM.

SATURDAY / Open forum: The St. Claude arts and cultural community has been growing exponentially. In celebration of that, St. Claude Main Street is hosting St. Claude Open Studios Saturday from 10AM-6PM providing the public an opportunity to take a self-guided tour of the creative spaces of Marigny, Bywater, and St. Roch. Best of all, it’s free, and all art pieces sold within the St. Claude Cultural District are sale-tax free. The event will be followed by the St. Claude Night Market, featuring music, food, artists, and artisans all selling original crafts and works. Saturday, 10AM-6PM, market 6 PM-12AM. Free.

SATURDAY / Shell it out: Shell Beach, a small fishing village in Eastern St. Bernard Parish, has withstood everything the Gulf has thrown at it, including Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. Now, they’re still in recovery from Isaac and want your help. But don’t worry—your help simply entails buying a ticket to a charity auction where you’ll get to slurp some oysters on the half-shell from Acme Oyster House and bid on local items such as game day barbeque from Cochon, VIP tickets and swag from Tipitina’s, and, weirdly enough, an original painting by actor David Arquette and an evening with him at his Hollywood Club. It wouldn’t be a party without some brass. The event features Kermit Ruffins, Glen David Andrews, and more.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band

SATURDAY-SUNDAY / Holy Trinity: Yes, in New Orleans we have festivals for everything, but you can’t be surprised that the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival is on the list. Celebrating one of Nola’s most famous dishes and infamous areas, the festival will feature 6 types of gumbo as well as many other New Orleans favorites. As it’s presented by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, those same wonderful people who bring us Jazz Fest, the weekend will be filled with two full days of boot-stomping brass bands. Well that right there is about as quintessential as it gets. Saturday and Sunday, Louis Armstrong Park.

Anna Shults is associate editor of NolaVie.