Thorner is a little village south of Wetherby and closer to Leeds by about 5 miles, on the 770 bus route but off the beaten track. For us it has been known for it's two pubs one of which does the best steak sandwiches in Yorkshire and another pub called the Beehive, one of those "Gastro Pub" things, no you don't need medication after it, it is in fact a fantastic classy evening dining experience. People get dressed up, behave well, and everything. Yorkshire is littered with fine food restaurants, farms, cafe`s, pubs, etc. Neil Morrisey,(sp?) most famous for being the dark haired bloke from the Men Behaving Badly TV show and the voice of Bob the Builder, is just opening a top class pub with a something hat chef in a nearby Harrogate village, Harrogate is a big Victorian era spa town which has a large modern conference and entertainment centre as well as great restaurants and thriving businesses and is a few miles north west of Wetherby (Yes, Wetherby is the centre of all things), anyway keep a look out as there is to be a TV show of Neil's trials setting up his new business as he is also trying to brew his own real ale and therein lies the interesting bit....... Which gets me back on to telling you about the Thorner Beer Festival at which there was LOTS of real ale, lager, wheat ale, cider and more .
You might see from the sign at the start of this rambling intro that Thorner has a RAISE THE ROOF charity cause for running it's beer festival. The village hall needed a new roof and as this was the fourth annual beer festival the roof has been well and truly funded and repairs well underway, 
but that is no reason not to have a beer festival as there is always something else needed for a village hall isn't there? The event attracted all the Thorner locals the first year (some 350 souls plus family) but they ran out of beer before the middle of the afternoon, about 800 turned up the second year when they ran out of beer by 4:30pm, a thousand showed themselves last year when the beer lasted till 6pm and I'd reckon 1500 folk will pass through the doors this year but the supply was at a good level at 3pm when we left. At 2 pounds 50p a pint they should be able to gild the roof
.
But you want to know details I suppose. The village hall is down a little back lane 
and is quite a substantial thing by all accounts, access is by a side lane shared by 
a dairy/beef cattle farm which does a neat farm shop line of eggs, potatoes and fresh lamb to order, in case you want some. 
The photos show you the scale of things inside the hall. Entertainment was provided by Morris Dancers, 
Yorkshire Sword dancers, a piano player, and Irish jig band and a curious group of old codgers going by the name of the 
Knaresborough (just North of Wetherby) Accordion and fiddle society....god knows what they get up to in the privacy of their meetings but they look like a bunch of rebels living life on the edge if you ask me.
As for the beers.... there was a selection of some 25 ales of which we sampled all bar 21 as we were driving. The process was, you bought a Thorner Beer Festival 2008 glass and a ticket for half a pint of any ale, this cost 5 pounds at the door then you bought coupons for any future drink you may require..... some asinine British licencing rule meant that you couldn't actually buy beer at the beer festival with money but it was quite alright to buy coupons with money at one table to exchange coupons for beer at the next table. Go figure.
To say the event was a hoot was to understate the mood. 
Folk dressed for the occasion in their best Yorkshire, groups erected marquees outside, and the catering was typical country fare, 
cornish pasties , ploughman's cheese lunches, bread and cheese, cheese by itself, and apple pie, without cheese, or with cheese as a side I suppose, there was no guidance on cheese etiquette. The greatest shame was perhaps that we didn't take any friends as we went just for a couple of hours between Gail's study requirements on the Saturday, she was getting appraised on Sunday by a big boss and she wanted to impress. Next year it will be a much better organised outing by us and we will organise a dedicated driver or hire cabs as dedicated drivers will undoubtedly have a tendency to be derelict in their duty. But I forget, it's right on the 770 bus route which stops at oor Wetherby home....problem solved.
I hope you enjoy the snaps and that they give you a slight insight into the reasons why we like Yorkshire so much.
In case you are wondering about the house works, I can report all is well, the job is finishing next week as the builders have gone broke, I escaped unscathed, and we have found new ones who are going to finish off for us. So we ended up with a great home,saved a few grand in expense and only lost a few weeks in time. All in all not a bad result.
