Beer and arts equality festival, Women On Tap, is gearing up for year five, will be a blend of virtual, digital, and live events. It will run from 9th-13th June.

Women on Tap 2021

The virtual experiences strand features: a Back of a Beermat writing workshop; a talk and discussion on harassment, in collaboration with international youth-led chalk art movement, Chalk Back; a life drawing class with beer; a tasting of Harrogate beer with beer sommelier Annabel Smith; a showcase of women in music; and a yoga class.

Live events include: music from The Paper Waits, at Roosters Taproom; pop-up poetry at Starling and The Disappearing Chin; and a takeover and closing party at Harrogate Brewing Co’s Taproom, all delivered within the government restrictions that are set to apply at the time of the events.

A festival beer is being brewed in collaboration with Leeds-based Nomadic Beers, and a Harrogate Beer Pack will be available to order, with national distribution featuring six selected beers from some Harrogate breweries.

The third festival strand and a new addition to the programme is a series of selected creative commissions. A call-out was made for proposals in response to one of four themes relating to beer, pubs, and equality. Six varied commissions have been selected and will be released across the festival, with wide-ranging content including a podcast, embroidery, a short film, and digital drawings. All selected creators will be paid a fee of £300 from the Women On Tap CIC.

Spotlight on women and beer

Founder, Rachel Auty, said: “We came into 2021 with a vision for the fifth festival, but so much uncertainty, like so many others. We are completely independently funded and we didn’t know if we’d be able to pull together a budget at all for this year.

“We’ve had incredible support from some wonderful sponsors, which has enabled us to not only put together a programme of brilliant people we can pay. We have extended this to pay a fee for others to create something they love especially for the festival. For the first time we have also recruited two freelancers to help with delivery.

“We pushed the festival back by a month this year, as we desperately wanted some live events and to support some of our local pubs. We can’t wait to put the spotlight on incredible women, excellent beer, and Harrogate again, and hopefully we’ll get to see lots of familiar faces.”

• For the full festival programme and booking information, go to www.womenontap.co.uk/festival2021