By Jill Stocks
This weekend is the 16th Yarnbury beer and music festival at Yarnbury RFC and crowds are expected once again to support this popular local event.
The festival began with a low key Thursday night session and continues today and tomorrow with a full programme of entertainment.
This afternoon is a corporate afternoon before opening to the public at 5pm with Abba night starting at 6pm.
Tomorrow’s session starts at 12pm with a full programme of music from 12:30pm starting with Sat Nav Pete with the LA Foo Fighters closing proceedings from 9:45pm.
Darren Foster, vice chair at Yarnbury, told us what we could look forward to and about the causes the festival supports:
“This is the 16th year of the Yarnbury Beer Festival. We’ve got 60 hand pulled beers, there’s a keg bar, we’ve got a gin bar, which is also serving Pimms, prosecco and limoncello spritzers. Live music all weekend with Abba tribute night on Friday from about 8pm, Saturday a full day from 12pm to 11pm, music finishes about 10:30pm.”
“We’re expecting a good turn out. We’ve traditionally struggled with the weather in the last few years so hopefully this year will be a bit of a brucey bonus for us given that it’s a good forecast for a change. Get the families up on the Saturday.
“We have a busy corporate Friday tomorrow with 400 corporate guests coming. They pay for an afternoons free drinking, food and music until 5pm when it opens to the public.”
“Charity wise for 16 years we’ve supported the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, we’re up to about £14,000 pounds for them. We support a charity called Leeds Hidden Homeless. They feed and clothe the people of Leeds who are homeless. And this year our third charity is Candlelighters. The raffle that we do on the corporate Friday afternoon and the evening that money goes to them.”
“This year as well we’re also supporting Andy Mayers, one of our ex players. He had a massive stroke which left him severely paralysed. He’s managed to get back some mobility. Lovely guy. He’s raising money for an off road wheelchair so we’ve been donating to that helping him with his justgiving page. He’s a club member, he used to play for us, he’s one of our own.
“Kirkstall Brewery is one of our main sponsors. Kirkstall has been supporting us from the start really. They sponsor us as a club too.”
Yarnbury beer and music festival is open to the public from 5pm today and from 12pm tomorrow. Entry is £10 which includes a festival glass and programme. The club on Brownberrie Lane is served by the number 27 bus route. Well behaved dogs are welcome on a lead and refreshments are available for them.
