BIRKENHEAD’S Future Yard will host the spring edition of its craft beer and music market this Saturday (February 25).

CRATE brings together the worlds of vinyl obsessives and craft beer aficionados for a daytime fair that pulls together some of the best local record labels, vendors, brewers, printmakers and DJs in the North West. Starting at 11am and running until 7pm, entry to the market is free.

A spokesperson for Future Yard said: “Independent record stores and independent brewers, record collectors and craft beer lovers; we are all essentially the same, celebrators of unique tastes, all shaped by a love and commitment to individual craft and the embodiment of DIY culture.

“CRATE is here to celebrate and bring together these two worlds. To provide a haven for the mashers and the collectors, the acid-jazz seekers and the saison lovers, a moment to indulge, to ferment in the grooves.”

Also appearing at CRATE for a Q&A in the afternoon market part of the day is pioneering DJ, director and musician Don Letts who is playing a ticketed set at the venue later in the evening.

Known as the man who single-handedly turned a whole generation of punks into reggae, Letts channels the spirit of his time as DJ at London’s legendary Roxy club back in 1977 with his sets, still DJing nationally and internationally playing strictly old and new school dub reggae.

He was also a founding member of Big Audio Dynamite alongside The Clash’s Mick Jones, and has continued to make films, DJ, and last year released his memoir, There and Black Again.

Letts’s appearance at Future Yard comes ahead of the release of his debut album, Outta Sync, which drops in April and features contributions from the late Terry Hall and The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne.

Letts said: “Ultimately the album’s a soundtrack to my mind with some cool bass lines, mirroring the sum total of my cultural journey and reflecting the duality of my existence, which is Black and British.”

n For more information on CRATE and tickets for Don Letts, go to futureyard.org