Alava Pinto Bean Fair 2026: a guide to Sunday 11 October in Pobes

There is a village in Alava that multiplies its population by ten once a year, and the reason is a bean. On Sunday 11 October 2026, Pobes holds the 30th Alava Pinto Bean Fair: thirty editions of a village fair that is still exactly that, a village fair. Which is precisely why it's worth your Sunday.

If you have just moved to the Basque Country and only know Bilbao and San Sebastián, this is the opposite of a festival. No main stage, no wristband. Livestock, horses, aizkolaris, a tug of war and an enormous pot of beans.

What the Alava pinto bean actually is

It's a dry-farmed legume, mottled brown and red, grown in Ribera Alta — Erriberagoitia in Basque — west of Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Añana district. This is not a supermarket bean: it's a small-production local crop, and Pobes, the municipal seat, has made itself its shop window.

The fair was created to give the crop a commercial outlet and has been doing that for thirty years. In practice, it is the one day of the year when the harvest gets sold.

The programme, hour by hour

Everything happens around the Pobes fronton. This is the programme published by the Ribera Alta town council:

Time	What
10:00	Alava pinto bean sales and livestock exhibition
11:00	Dancing with Algara Dantza Taldea
11:30	Horse display, with Nova Victoria
11:45	Opening speech, by Luis Mari Bengoa
12:00	Herri kirolak championship
13:00	Public bean tasting, by Boilur — 1.50 € a portion
15:00	Communal lunch at the sports hall — 20 €
18:00	Pelota festival

And all morning, children's games with Kulki, which makes the fair a workable plan with kids and not just a legume run.

What to know before you go

The communal lunch can no longer be booked. Registration closed on 7 October at the town hall, and the programme warns that you must show your ticket. If you turn up on Sunday without having signed up, your plan is the 13:00 tasting: a portion of beans for 1.50 €, no booking needed.

Go in the morning. The good block runs from 10:00 to 13:00: bean buying, livestock, dancing, horses, the opening speech and herri kirolak, all back to back and outdoors. At 13:00 you eat for a euro and a half, and by then you've seen the whole fair.

Bring cash. This is a producers' fair in a small village; don't assume every stall takes cards.

Buy beans. It sounds obvious, but it's the entire point of the fair: this is the day of the year you can buy them straight from the person who grew them, at a price that isn't the delicatessen one.

Herri kirolak: the part you don't expect

The 12:00 herri kirolak championship is, for a newcomer, the most striking thing all day. Herri kirolak means "village sports": disciplines born out of farm and smallholding labour, and competed in seriously.

What a fair like this usually features: aizkolaris cutting logs with axe or saw, harrijasotzaileak lifting stones of over a hundred kilos, txinga races with a weight in each hand, bale lifting and sokatira, team tug of war.

You need no Basque and no grasp of the rules for it to work. It's very strong people doing very hard things two metres away from you, and the applause takes care of itself.

Getting there

Pobes sits in the municipality of Ribera Alta / Erriberagoitia, west of Vitoria-Gasteiz. It's a short drive from the Alava capital, and your destination is the village fronton, which in Pobes you cannot miss.

If you drive, bear in mind that on fair Sunday the village takes in far more people than live in it: park at the first space you find and walk.

Why this fair and not another

October is full of festivals in the Basque Country, and almost all of them are bigger than this one. Durango's San Faustos, Areatza's Euskal Jaiak, San Sebastián's neighbourhood fiestas: all have more programme, more music and more people.

But this one has something the others don't: it is small, agricultural and about one specific product. It's the kind of plan that doesn't make the guidebooks and that a newly arrived resident would never find alone, because it isn't advertised anywhere except the town hall notice board. Getting there is free, eating there is cheap and doing it is quick.

Thirty editions on, it's still a village fair. That is exactly the reason to go.

---

Programme per the Ribera Alta / Erriberagoitia town council. Check the times at the source before setting off: in a village fair, last-minute changes don't always reach the listings.