ILKLEY Brewery - the multi-award-winning brewery, famous for its Mary Jane session pale ale - is stepping up its efforts to support the people of Ukraine, through the main tool at their disposal - beer.

There will be a special community fundraiser event for the public to come to the brewery in Ilkley and show their solidarity on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th April.

The event will cater for 500 people on each day, including a Family Day on the Sunday, complete with kids entertainment, face painting, ice-cream and more. All raising funds for the UNICEF humanitarian fund. There will be Ukrainian-themed street food, DJs, a pop-up wine bar as well as over 12 beers on show. Representatives from Yorkshire to Ukraine volunteering group, as well as local Ukrainian Associations will be on-hand to share their experiences.

There will also be beers from Kyiv-based craft brewer Varvar Brew, safely evacuated by Euroboozer in the midst of a warzone. One hundred per cent of the proceeds will go directly to the brewers’ families and to www.drinkersforukraine.com

Furthermore, Ilkley Brewery has brewed two special new beers to launch at the event: Hops Not Hate Pale Ale and Resist! Anti-Imperial Stout.

Hops Not Hate is a long-standing global initiative where 50 per cent of sales from an affiliated beer goes to two charities, one global and one local. This sessionable, refreshing, 4.1% Pale will raise funds for Yorkshire to Ukraine as well as UNICEF and is available to pubs across the UK. Fifty per cent of all bar sales in pubs will also be donated.

Resist! is a 7% Beetroot Stout brewed to a recipe shared by displaced Ukrainian brewers as part of the Drinkers For Ukraine project. It will be available on the Ilkley Brewery webshop in special 750ml sharing bottles, priced at £12, with proceeds going to the Red Cross humanitarian effort.

Luke Raven, the brewery’s co-owner, spoke about why it was so important for the business to play a role supporting this cause: “We all have a collective responsibility to do what we can to stand with and support the people of Ukraine in the face of the criminal invasion by Russia.

"We have beer, a voice, and vans, and so are putting all three together to do our bit. We are actively engaged with community groups, who will be at our event, and there is an open invite for displaced Ukrainian families to be our guests at the event – showing them that the brewing community and the Yorkshire community stand with them.”

Ilkley Brewery has already raised over £1000 from beer sales as well as acting as a local drop off point, and driving five full brewery vans of donated goods to be combined by Yorkshire to Ukraine and sent to the Polish and Romanian borders.

If the event is fully booked, the hope is to raise at least a further £5000. Tickets for the event can be purchased via the website at www.ilkleybrewery.co.uk/events