RAISE your glasses! – There’s a Bank Holiday on the horizon and York publicans are set to make it one to savour.

Get ready for one long weekend of two hugely tempting festivals in three tremendous pubs over four lazy days.

Let’s start in Holgate, where The Fox Inn is hosting Fox Fest from Friday through until Monday.

This pub has undergone a rebirth and reinvigoration since Ossett Brewery took it over in 2014, securing the financial reinvestment it had long deserved, so if you’ve not been in a while this is a great excuse to get along again.

There’s a large garden to enjoy if the weather is favourable, a decent-sized car park if you’ve got a designated driver, and the pub itself is fantastic – one of the best purpose-built Victorian boozers in the city.

There will be live music, street food and excellent beers. Fox Fest isn’t a beer festival, as such, but The Fox always has four Ossett beers on and four or five other ales alongside, offering a range that few other suburban pubs in York come close to matching.

The food is by the respected Street Cleaver, and will be available from 4pm til late on Friday and 2pm til late on Saturday and Sunday.

The music, meanwhile, will be varied over the four days. From 6pm on Friday, Georgette Hilton will be performing what’s described as “contemporary to country, belting vocals”. From 6pm on Saturday, it’s the turn of The Flying Donkeys (a “lively, punky, fun, acoustic Irish duo”.

From 4pm on Sunday there’s a “family-friendly, old school vinyl sesh” then from 4pm to 8pm on Monday, there’s a Bank Holiday open mic session, with the promise of a free pint for anyone who plays.

York Press:

While all that is going on over in Holgate, The Slip Inn in Clementhorpe and its sister pub The Swan in Bishopgate Street are hosting their seventh annual beer and cider festival.

This will hold more allure to the most enthusiastic ale aficionados, with 40 beers from 40 different breweries expected on the two pubs’ bars over the weekend.

Doors open at 3pm on Friday then at noon on Saturday and Sunday, and the festival generally continues until all the festival beers have run out, at which point you return to the pubs’ usual excellent range (it’s a tough life).

There’ll be hot food at The Swan and a barbecue at The Slip, plus live music on and off throughout the weekend at both pubs.

But this event is very much about the beer. We've not yet received The Slip list, but here are the beers you can look forward to at The Swan:

  • 360 Degrees - Rye Amber (4.6%)
  • Abstract Jungle - Jackal Porter (4.2%)
  • Abbeydale - Abbey Ale IPA (5.5%)
  • Blue Monkey - Guerilla stout (4.9%)
  • Box Steam - Golden Bolt pale ale (3.8%)
  • Dancing Duck - 22 amber best bitter (4.3%)
  • Ilkley - Rombauld US brown ale (4.6%)
  • Lancaster - Straw pale ale (3.5%)
  • Lenton Lane - Bluebird pale ale (3.8%)
  • Little Valley - Ginger Pale Ale (4.0%)
  • Mordue - NZ Pale Ale (4.9%) 
  • Oakham - Tranquility IPA (6.5%)
  • Out There - Angara Baltic porter (5.5%) 
  • Rudgate - Lemon Hopsicle pale ale (3.6%)
  • Salopian - Lemon Dream wheat beer (4.5%)
  • Thornbridge - Wild Swan pale ale (3.5%)
  • Titanic - Nautical Mild (4.8%)
  • Twickenham - Naked Ladies golden ale (4.4%)
  • West Berkshire - Mr Chubb's Lunchtime Bitter, amber bitter (3.7%)