Southport Magazine

What: Burgers, Brews and Blues
When: Tuesday, July 1st
3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: The Grape & Ale
8521 E. Oak Island Dr., Oak Island
Cost: $25 plus tax; a portion of the proceeds benefit Paws Place
Info: (910) 933-4384
www.thegrapeandale.com

This will be the sixth Oak Island Beach Day for Candace and Jim Hobbs of The Grape & Ale, and the business owners thought they’d spend it a little differently this year.

On July 1st, the day of the NC Fourth of July festival’s Beach Day on the island, the Hobbs will be hosting their first ever Burgers, Brews and Blues event. To Candace, there is nothing more American than grilling burgers, sipping beer and listening to some blues.

“The Fourth of July festival is just really awesome, and of course it happens every year, and so with Beach Day we thought it would be a great idea and great compliment to everything,” Candace explains.

Robert Wallace Catering will be responsible for providing the crowd with burgers that have “all the trimmings,” while the Hobbs will provide the drinks for the “brew” element of the event. Featured drafts will include two NC brewed beers: Rain Check Spiced Stout, the first beer released out of Sierra Nevada’s recently opened NC plant, and Aviator Mad Beach American Wheat. For non-beer drinkers, The Grape & Ale will feature a bottle of Flight Cable wine.

Providing the blues will be local favorite, according to the Hobbs, Kira Small. Small has been to perform at their shop three times over the past couple years. When Small was there during the last week in May, Candace asked the blues singer-songwriter if she would be interested in participating in Burgers, Brews and Blues.

Small has sung with musical greats such as Peter Frampton, Wynonna Judd and Martina McBride and spends her time touring nationally, playing at house concerts and listening rooms, the perfect venues to showcase her “intimate songwriting.”

At each gathering, Small tries “to leave people feeling inspired, feeling heard, liberated to get up and dance, feeling saucier than they might normally give themselves permission to feel.”

Tickets for Burgers, Brews and Blues are $25, getting customers a burger, two draft beers and entry to the concert. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Paws Place, a non-profit animal rescue in Boiling Springs Lakes.