Features: Philly; Running Fast and Drinking Well with Connor Black; and, What I'm Drinking This Week

Now that I've confirmed and explained what you probably always suspected about the profound complimentarity of good  beer and running, and have given you a fun new way to rate your beers, I will, as promised, and without further adieu, kick off the features that will be Hop Along's foundations.

Hopping Along in...Philly PA:

Philadelphia PA, one of the oldest cities in North America, was an epicenter of political ferment in the late colonial period. Later, it was an important site of Civil Rights/African American liberation struggles in the Northeast. And where there is political discussion, there are the beverages that sustain and enliven it-- coffee* (for the daytime) and beer (for the evening). In fact, as Thomas Pychon's brilliantly colourful historical novel of the late Revolutionary period, Mason and Dixon, depicts it, Philly has been a great place to drink and talk since at least its late 18C heyday, when its most famous citizen-- the world historic polymath, diplomat, and eventual Founding Father, Ben Franklin-- could be regularly encountered, late-of-an-evening, drinking beer and regaling patrons with his "electricity tricks".

Philly also has an interesting geography-- one that happens to be pretty ideal for running. A city of rivers (the Schuylkill and Delaware) and tributary creeks that create natural interstices in the built environment, Philadelphia sports several cool and unbroken waterside running trails. The one I chose to hit was the Wissahickon Trail in Wissahickon Park, situated near our Airbnb in the northwest corner of the city. Sadly, a tight timeline prevented me from running on the gravel section of the trail, but, the paved southern portion was sufficiently stunning-- a bike and foot path that followed the twists of the creek, traversing it with small bridges when necessary. Traffic was light and temperatures were ideal in the shade of the ravine, and with the creek, swollen with recent spring rains, rolling alongside at a good clip.

The reason for the trip was the 2019 Penn Relays, so the venue of choice for beers was UPenn's University City Tap House. I've been to the Tap House several times now, but never in weather sufficiently benign to take full advantage of its spectacular 2nd story patio. (Definitely get outside if you visit in the later spring, summer, or early fall). The tap list was good, as usual, but not quite up to the standard of the past few years. I'm speculating, but I fear dead hand of Big Beer may be establishing its grip on the place. I noted two or three Anheuser-Busch/InBev products among the taps, with the bottle list exclusively ABIB swill.Time will tell, I guess. Holding the craft fort on the menu were a couple of lesser known regional IPAs-- Funk's Silent Disco out of Emmanus PA and the inelegantly named (and hemp infused) 420 Strain G13 IPA, courtesy of the Sweetwater Brewery in Atlanta GA. The more conventional of the two, Silent Disco, was also the better, but both were very good examples of the style-- the American IPA, N/E variant-- in other words citrusy, cloudy, and a little dank. As very high 29:50/34:50 brews, these could handily win your local road race, but would struggle to distinguish themselves from the pack at the regional level, particularly if that region was the northeast of the USA-- the Rift Valley of beer, x100.  


*Speaking of Philly coffee and politics, I am compelled to offer a shout-out to Uncle Bobby's Coffee and Books, a place we very luckily stumbled upon on our way out of town. The coffee and snacks were top notch, as was the ambience. The owner is Philadelphia writer and activist Marc Lamont Hill and the shop is located in the famous Germantown section of town.

Run Fast, Drink Well:

Our feature athlete in this installment of RFDW is none other than 2018 CIS XC Champ, and new post-collegiate journeyman Connor Black. We we were lucky enough to have Connor along with us on the trip to Philly-- and Conner, a regular craft consumer whose go-to is Muskoka's Twice and Mad Tom, was lucky enough to land himself a Lawson's Sip or Sunshine , courtesy of my all-time favourite beer store Sam the Beer Man, in Binghamton NY enroute. Originating in Vermont in early 2010s, SOS is classic example of the N/E style, and one that still easily ranks among the best ever brewed. Like its gorgeous yellow can, it is bright, floral, and citrusy. But, at 8% abv, it also has a very sturdy malt backbone and lingering, complex finish that becomes more pronounced as it warms. On the 10k scale, SOS is a rare sub-27 beer, but just barely. In fact, its circa 2010 origin and stature make it the Chris Solinsky of beers!

Here is Connor's take on SOS:

sweet followed by a mix of the bitter tropical fruits (orange peel, and grapefruit?), but isn’t too bitter. nice hoppy finish: isn’t overpowering and doesn’t leave you like your sucking on dandelion, like some other 8%ers. tastes like you’re drinking a really good tropical juice you’d get at a resort, but without the sweetness and it’s tart instead. you could probably have it w breakfast. It’s an 'orange juice’ that is analogous to the American Iced Tea, not Sweet tea, where it is void of the sugar and just busting with citrus.

the can is pretty. but, if you pour it in a glass the colour of the brew is happy like the sun.. so, just keep the can nearby. 

Best time to drink: no brainer —> post-workout while you prep dinner. You’re hungry, so you notice the blend better. You’re depleted, so you get a nice ‘heady’ and unwind from the run… mental recovery, folks. Beauty start to the evening.

P.S: best served with company. Hit me up if you enjoy crushing miles and celebrating them with an ice cold craft* Crispy Boy.

Cheers.

 


And here he is finishing it up:

 What I'm drinking this week:

 This week, I am being delighted by two very fit beers, perfect for early spring-- Dominion City's Null and Void and Equilibrium's Laboratory Waves.

Null and Void--the best new Canadian beer I've tried this year-- is a burly yet superbly balanced double IPA (10% abv). It is dank with ripe tropical fruit aromas and taste notes, and its mouthfeel and finish are smooth. sticky, and complex. (A newish beer of low 28min calibre, this beer awaits its Canadian running counterpart-- Justyn Knight? Evan Esselink!?). I would urge anyone doing Ottawa Race Weekend to be sure to get some of this brew into your mouth post-haste post-race!

Lab Waves is a truly massive, yet mesmerizingly complex triple IPA (10.4% abv). Its aroma is subdued for a beer this massively hopped (Citra, predominantly), and its flavour presentation is mostly ripe tropical fruit, with a hint of tartness (lime?). The addition of lactose, which makes the mouth-feel soft and the finish almost creamy, is likely responsible for the profound complexity extant throughout. Sip after sip, your palate will try in vain to solve this one, then simply surrender to the ineffable beauty of a superbly crafted, state of the art, ale. This beer is too inexperienced to have run a 10k yet, but it's already breaking 13:00/14:30 for 5k. Call it the Letensenbet Gidey/Selemon Barega of beers!

Note: Equilibrium Brewery is in Middletown NY, home of the legendary Classic 10k , held in early June. Hard to think of a better beer/running combo!

How Fast Is Your Beer?

As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. In the 1990s, the hammer we had was an arcane knowledge of distance running, including where our own performances placed us in the vast hierarchy of this old, global sport. And in these years before the great polarization of racing distances-- i.e. between the 5k and anything with the word "marathon" in it-- the 10k performance was the standard measure of running ability. For peak-age male athletes like us, 30mins was (and still is, really), the dividing line between good and very good (the Mercier performance tables say 30:00 is roughly equivalent to 35:00 for women). So handy was this metric that we would begin applying it by analogy to things otherwise completely unrelated to running. You have a friend who is a pretty good figure skater? How good is he in 10k terms? You have another one who's making his way in music or journalism? Is he sub-30 yet, or still in the 32:30 range? And on it went. The quality of anything and everything could be reduced to the thing we knew best--  the 10k personal best-- never mind the accuracy. 

With the ascendance the website beeradvocate.com and its famous beer-rating function, it has become standard practice to evaluate beers on a 5 point system, with anything over 4 registering as from "very good" to "world class" (as of today, for instance, the top 250 rated beers on BA range in score from 4.46 to 4.84, with the top rated Canadian beer, Dieu du Ciel!'s Barrel Aged Pèchè Mortel, coming in at 4.45). This rating system is fine, but also boring. For this blog, I therefore propose a new metric-- you guessed it, the 10k equivalent! For the beers I discuss in the blog, of which there will eventually be many, I will be employing the following scale:

Sub-28 (women's sub 32)-- For the truly world class. Here, the aforementioned Pèchè Mortel would be the Mohamed Ahmed or Cam Levins of beers-- not quite at the very top, but in the conversation when it comes to the best all-time domestic drinking experiences, and certainly known to the serious beer drinker globally. Of course, this category would also include the Kenenisa Bekeles and Eliud Kipchoges of the beer world-- your Heady Toppers and Westvletern 12s-- beers you may never get to try, but have heard tales of. For me, the hallmark of the sub-28 level beer is its ability to induce a mild shock of surprise at its quality, not once, but on a consistent basis. These are the beers you know are going to be good when you crack them, but that forcibly remind you of their superiority to the main beer pack every time you are fortunate enough to return to them. They are superbly balanced, but also bursting with unique character. The very best are utterly sui generis-- instantly recognizable and impossible to mistake for anything else.

Note: If you are very new to beer, you will probably lack the palate perspective to register the full power of the beers in this category. In other words, you may find yourself feeling like the beer drinking equivalent of that NARP relative of yours, the one whose mind is blown by the thought of any 10k performance under 40mins. So, do try these beers if you get the opportunity, but understand that you may not fully "get" them until you've tried a few dozen of examples from the category below.

Sub-30 (women's sub 35)-- For the best of the hardworking and more readily available brews found anywhere there is serious crafting going on. This category will include most of the beers we go to on a weekly basis, if we're lucky enough to have good suppliers. Off the top of my head, and using an example local to me, this category would include the best offerings from a brewery like Hamilton's Collective Arts. Sub-30 beers are excellent exemplars of their style; they are flavourful, well balanced, and highly drinkable, but lacking the above-mentioned capacity to stop the drinker in his/her gustatory tracks.

+30-- For the vast majority of beers available, including beers that make an honest effort but fall just below their top local and national competitors (but also some beers that, sadly, aren't really even trying to challenge anyone's palate). It would include most of the beer coming out of the many new craft breweries now springing up almost by the month-- beverages that are sometimes good for training the palates of hop virgins, but are typically not worthy of the daily alcohol quotient of the aficionado (except in a serious pinch, or when graciously offered by a friendly host). These beers are at least recognizable by style, and often easily drinkable, but are just a shade off in at least one key area (balance, weight, mouth feel) compared with the sub-30 brew.

For the worst beers out there (about which I will try to say as little as possible) I will, with apologies to Dom Mazetti, reserve the category "Do You Even Run?". In beer parlance, this category would include "drain pours" (serious but colossally failed crafts) and ubiquitous macro-brewed schizen. If you are drinking any of these beers (and, yet, have still found your way to this blog) you will be advised to proceed directly to the +30 category for remediation.These days, there is no excuse for drinking bad beer.

In some cases, I will be giving down-to-the-second scores in the sub-28 and sub-30 categories, but these will be the main groupings. And apologies in advance to masters' age competitors like me. Unfortunately, there is no beer equivalent of "age-grading". I will therefore be sticking with the peak-age performance measure.

Finally, a note on beer tasting and subjectivity. Those relatively new to beer may be inclined to scoff at my certainty, broadly speaking, when it comes to ranking beers. They may say "Come on. Taste is completely subjective. My Tankhouse or Mad Tom is completely fine. There is no way any beer is THAT much better. It's all pretentious hype!". And they would be dead-wrong. There is a remarkable consensus among the mass of serious beer drinkers concerning what constitutes top notch beer, and so on down the pecking order. We all have our preferred styles, but we very rarely deviate by more than a couple of BA basis-points (.1-2) when it comes to identifying the top brews. Once you have refined your palate, play the game yourself: Try a new beer, rate it 1-5 in your head, then check said beer's BA score (the result of often thousands of serious drinker's impressions, all registered in relative isolation from one another) and be amazed at how close your own evaluation comes!

Return next week for the first of my beer and running travel reviews-- this one on the city of Philadelphia, where I will attending this year's edition of the Penn Relays. I may also include my first "Run Fast, Drink Well" featured athlete, if I can secure a volunteer! 

Acquiring Your "Beer Palate" (and how it just might make you faster!)

There are two simple reasons why you don't like beer, if you don't like it: 1. You've never had a really good one; and/or 2. You eat too much refined sugar. Address these problems and you will be well on your way to developing a sophisticated "beer palate". As a delightful bonus, you may even find that the body this palate feeds becomes leaner, lighter, and more metabolically stable-- a better adapted running machine!

Your whole life, since childhood, has been a process of learning to appreciate things that at first seemed difficult or off-putting. If you're like me, going for a run by yourself was one of those things. But your earliest and most frequent challenges in the gauntlet between childhood and adult maturity probably concerned what you ate and drank. At one point in your life, you probably thought a steady diet of Lucky Charms sounded like a dream come true. Then it was Kraft Dinner. But now you salivate at the thought of a good curry. And, like millions of North Americans (mostly over the age of 40), there was a time when you thought all coffee tasted the same-- or perhaps even that Dunkin Donut's  or Tim Horton's coffee was better than specialty coffee, because the latter was "too strong". You likely can't recall how it happened, but somehow your palate began to discern subtleties of flavour underneath the off-putting taste-exterior of things you thought you didn't think. The interplay of different spices in good Mexican or India food slowly appeared beneath the heat, and a medley of flavour notes began to announce itself beneath the bitter presentation of that third specialty coffee you were peer-pressured into buying by your cooler college friend.

Unfortunately for you, this never happened with beer. Why?

First, because "Big Beer"-- whose global ownership concentration makes the oil and gas industry look like a free market paradise-- has been exceedingly good at doing what it does: Marketing its bland swill to you in every nook and cranny, and making it look as though its products don't all come from the same place. So you've tried "beer" in several of the seemingly vast varieties you've seen advertised and marketed, and you didn't like any of them. And, since, as the advertisements told you, beer, like all alcoholic beverages, was mainly for getting drunk on, you decided you preferred something different-- probably something more concentrated, or something sweeter. And even if you stuck with "beer" for your binging purposes, you had to admit that you don't really like the way it tastes. In any case, beer doesn't interest you, and the possibilities of beer as a pure flavour experience have not occurred to you. You might even be thinking: "Why bother making an effort to like something I've tried and have no interest in, just because a couple of bearded guys at the end of the bar told me I don't know what I'm missing"? "My world of taste is complete, thank you very much", you might be thinking. You might even be thinking: "And beer will make me fat" (of which more below).

But second, chances are you don't like beer, even if you've been lucky enough to had access to a really good one (courtesy of that bearded guy at the end of the bar), because you still eat too damned much refined sugar! That's right, you can't actually taste a really hoppy, roasty, sour, or grassy brew because the amount of refined sugar you eat has prevented you from registering this range of more bitter, resinous, and grainy flavours. Your palate has been conditioned to expect a certain (and likely pretty extreme) amount of simple sweetness in everything you eat. As a result, anything as bitter and grainy and, say, an IPA will hit you with assaultive force.

In the end, our taste in food and beverage is the classic "matter of taste". But, if you're a serious runner-- and especially if you're a serious runner-- I'm here to tell you that you're lack of taste for beer in objectively wrong. Lucky for you, I'm also here to tell you how to acquire a "beer palate" and thus how to "get right with beer".

Step one is uncomplicated, but perhaps the most difficult for some: eliminate as much refined sugar from your diet as you possibly can. And remember that it is everywhere in the North American diet. Vegetarians and vegans will likely have a leg up in this department, but anyone can do it, especially anyone with the discipline to run long distances every day.

Step two (a month or so into step one), start sampling different styles of craft beer to find one that matches your current taste in other food and beverages. If you're a daily coffee drinker, this will be relatively easy. You will cotton onto a well crafted stout or porter almost instantly. Look for something relatively full-bodied and with a higher ABV (e.g. a barrel-aged imperial stout, perhaps with an adjunct like coffee, chocolate, or fruit). If you like fruit juices,  kombucha, cider, or even soda pop, try a sour ale (a old and formerly defunct style currently exploding in popularity) with a fruit adjunct. If you're neither a coffee nor a light, fruity beverage consumer, you might connect with an IPA, the flagship style of the craft beer revolution. But keep the degree of difficulty on the low side for your first few attempts. A lower ABV, single IPA will likely taste sufficiently bitter and hoppy for your initiation period of 6-12 weeks.

If you are American, you will have little difficulty in tracking down good brews to sample. Simply consult beeradvocate.com or ask a beer-loving friend for help (we are always willing-- nay, too willing-- to offer suggestions). If you are Canadian, things are a little trickier. Some provinces, like BC and Quebec, whose retailing scene if far less regulated, offer rich and diverse beer landscapes. Many of the others are veritable beer deserts. Residents of these places will have to seek out beer-o-philes where they can find them, and work with their provincial retailers to order in product.

Finally, what can you expect if you manage to complete this two step process? If you're like me and thousands of other runners who like good beer, you may find that your appetite for refined sugar disappears in direct proportion to you ability to appreciate the complexities of different beer styles. You may also find that your drinking style (if you were a drinker before) begins to change. For the same reason you would never consider choking down as much of your favourite food as you possibly can, to the point of nausea, you will be reluctant to binge on beer. Your newfound respect for beer as an artisanal product with more to offer than simple oblivion (to say nothing of the extra cost of good beer) will give you serious pause before over-consuming. You will also, as I explained in the flagship post above, begin to crave beer as food, not as beverage, which will mean that you will appreciate it best soon after running, and in smaller quantities. All of this could end up being a boon to your running. In acquiring your "beer palate" you will have traded the useless calories in refined sugar for the complexly flavourful calories of hops, malt, and yeast, often with a net reduction and a positive effect on your insulin sensitivity (meaning a leveling of appetite and more stable blood sugar). Your appreciation for beer may well also change your relationship with alcohol in general, in the form of a less impulsive and more "adult" drinking style-- meaning, perhaps, no more runs or workouts impaired by compromised sleep and/or poisonous hangovers. Thus to the motto: "Drink less to enjoy more" we can reasonably add "and run better"!*

*Again, complete abstinence is a perfectly reasonable choice for runners, for the same reason that its a reasonable choice for anyone. But my aim in this space is to celebrate beer as beer, not beer as alcohol vector, albeit also without denying the essential role of alcohol in beer.



 

Welcome To Hop Along: The Beer and Running Blog!

I had my first swig of beer-- a thirsty, breathless pull on my dad's pint as he sat in a lawn chair and I ran around the yard under a scorching July sun-- at the age of 8. I can't say I liked it, but it was cold, fizzy, and at hand. A few years later, I discovered competitive running. I can't say I liked it either at first, but it was available, and I was good at it, kind of. Both tastes, I would discover, once acquired, can exert a powerful hold!

By the end of high school, I had drank a few beers of my own and run a lot more miles. I liked the miles a lot more than the beers. Beer was, in those days (and for some today, still), a cheap and very simple alcohol vector-- one whose semiology was, and still is, "fun" and "sociability" rather than either "effeteness" (see wine and single malt scotch) or "solitary alcoholic dissolution" (see gin and blended whiskey). Beer was for younger men, and it was for binging on. No one I knew actually liked the taste of it-- and for good reason. To say that it was tasteless was to compliment it; it was only "tasteless" when it wasn't aggressively awful-- which, due to both poor quality control and complete inattention by the brewer, it often was. Even at its best, it could not be imbibed comfortably unless at palate-numbing temperatures (hence Coors "cold" mantra). It managed to be somehow simultaneously weak-tasting and disgustingly bitter. It also tended to leave a sticky, gag-inducing film on the back of the throat. The styles of the beer could sometimes be found on the bottles, but nobody cared enough to look (it was always just "ale" or "pilsner"). Though most beer drinkers had brand loyalties-- some to the point of self-identifying, hat and t-shirt wearing , fanship-- everyone knew damn well there was no telling them apart by taste. Girls often wouldn't even attempt to drink beer-- because, apparently, they had no need to exhibit their manhood by choking down swill without grimacing. Because I didn't like this "beer" enough to force down a bottle (and liked even less the high school "parties" where binging on it was more or less a requirement-- and how else to cope with the adolescent sexual anxiety that these gatherings were both a cause of and a response to? But that's a whole other story!), I didn't have much to do with beer till I rediscovered it in university. (Queen's University, as it happens, which would become home to the "beer mile" years after I left. Of which more below). 

And it was in university that beer and running began their association for me. The beer predominantly on offer was still gross, of course, but interesting alternatives-- the occasional stout or Belgian-- were beginning to appear in the more hop-curious drinking establishments that, now that I was of legal drinking age, I could enter without fear of ejection (and you could still drink underage-- sometimes WAY underage, particularly if you were female-- in those days). The average undergrad party still featured gallons of crap beer guzzled at top speed, sometimes with mechanical aids, or by exploitation of the physics of canning-- then often regurgitated later by means of similar physics. But, if you were a varsity athlete, and a serious one, drinking beer (and, yes, getting drunk on it) offered a new basis for bonding with one's "people". The beer or two with dinner in the pub following a weekend race or hard workout, or the blow-out after-party following a long competitive season, replaced the lonely and awkward choking down of pints at a status-conscious campus party or a desolate, deafening, chrome-and-mirror dance club. Even crap beer was drinkable on such occasions-- and more interesting beer, such as a pint of stout, an amber ale, or a yeasty, boozy Belgian tripel-- could be downright thrilling. I was just beginning to discover that well crafted beer consumed when exhilaratingly tired and/or several hundred calories in deficit could activate dimensions of taste that seemed to transcend the physical.

For me and millions of others, however, the full potential of the running/beer nexus would await the craft beer revolution, which was organizing at the cellular level in parts of the U.S. by the time I left university in the late 1980s, but was still a decade or so from storming the corporate beer Bastille. In Canada, the first whispers of change came in the form of beers that were made without adjuncts-- in other words, with just hops, water, yeast, and grain. Lagers and pale ales and a couple of different stouts were still the only styles widely available, but the idea that beer could be more than a bitter yellow water created for the benefit of young men looking to get drunk while remaining upright, or of middle aged men trying to nurse a respectable, functional alcoholism, had been broached. It was when I was approaching middle age myself, and still training seriously, that true craft beer invaded the mainstream, bringing the range of styles and the intensity of flavour now familiar even to the casual beer drinker. By the turn of the millennium, beer had come full circle, returning to its local, artisanal, and experimental roots. In so doing, it had become as interesting as wine or scotch, but without the price and high ABV. Beer was now something that could be consumed for reasons other than its alcohol content, and in a style similar to that of its effete cousins-- daily, in small quantities, and as a compliment to food and other things, such as running!

Yes,running.

Beer and running had a connection long before the craft beer revolution, but in the form of the post-race beer keg ritual. Many races, big and small, would crack kegs of cut-rate lager for participants, who would swill it from plastic cups while standing around aglow in their sweaty gear, discussing performance versus expectations in minute detail, the way we runners are wont to do. In this context the "beer-ness" of the substance being imbibed was largely irrelevant. Then, a few years later, there came the invention of the "beer mile"-- a contest involving an equal number of beers consumed and laps of a standard running track completed (4) as quickly as possible. This beer/running connection was forged, unsurprisingly, by college-age men-- men, one suspects, becoming a little bored with both running and drinking beer, and deciding to combine the residual thrill of each into a single activity. Beer-miling came into something of a vogue when it attracted the attention of nostalgic post-collegiate and middle-aged men (and a few women) looking to see if they still had it in the zaniness department (some still did, but that's for others to discuss). Despite many invitations, I was never enticed to attempt a "beer mile", and the very thought of combining running and beer in that way became off-putting in direct proportion to my increasing interest in and love of craft beer. At the risk of ending up at odds with my many friends who "beer mile", I maintain that drinking beer competitively and combining it with a foot race is a acute insult to both venerable activities.

I suspect I'm not alone in this view, however, as the worlds of beer-miling and serious beer appreciation tend to be entirely separate ones. The beer in beer-miling is selected for its ease of very rapid swallowing and for its intermediate ABV (above 5%, as per the now official rules of this "sport"), such that the liquid in question might just as well not even be beer at all-- except for the ironically comedic effect that the whole thing seems to trade on ("runners are supposed to be fit, and here they are guzzling beer!").

The beer mile has indeed worked as popular spectacle to the extent that it has (and it now features a championship circuit, prize money, and sponsored athletes!) by playing on the mainstream N.A.R.P (non-athletic-regular-person) misconception that seriously fit people, and especially distance runners-- that most hair-shirted of athletes-- tend not to drink alcohol at all, and least of all something as plebian as beer. All my adult life, the admission that I quite like beer, and drink it often, has been met with bemusement by non-runners. I have a feeling that if I said I liked wine the reaction would be different (for then I would be some kind of connoisseur and not just someone who likes to get drunk). Even today, however, 20+ years into the craft beer revolution, professing a love of beer often conjures up images of the drunken, Everyman buffoonishness of a Homer Simpson or of Canada's own brothers Mackenzie. Beer, it seems, is still primarily for chasing away one's workaday problems, whilst wine and spirits are all about tasting (or else the supposedly more refined binging of the middle and upper classes-- see e.g. the whole "wine lady" shtick). The idea that a person perceived as not just casually active but as competitively fit would profess a love for beer (read: easy drunkenness) still seems somewhat improbable to many. The advent of craft beer, in all its seemingly endless styles, flavours, and ABVs promises to completely disassemble this complex of assumptions. And I plan to help it along by explaining precisely why I, along with surprising-- and growing-- number of other serious runners, think beer and serious running are not only compatible but highly complimentary. 

So, without further adieu, and by way of intro to this blog, allow me to adduce some of the reasons why quality beer may be one of running's greatest compliments (e.g in the same category as things like dirt trails, lightweight textiles, and GPS watches):

1. When brewed expertly, and with concern for character and body, beer is actually closer to food than beverage. While runners have traditionally guzzled watery pilsners and lagers to quench their thirst, craft beer aficionados have discovered that beer is best enjoyed after full hydration with water and before food calories are introduced in earnest (small snacks are fine). When completely hollowed out from a long run or workout, and just as the familiar post-run appetite suppression has lifted, the consumption of a robust and well balanced beer can be akin to a religious experience. The post-run, full-body hunger primes the taste buds to a state completely unknown to the sedentary person, enabling the drinker to experience the subtle complexities of flavour imparted by malt, yeast, and hops in their most vivid detail, and in the way that food, with it necessity to masticate, can't quite match. Drink good beer within an hour of running and you will drink it forever. (Best post-run beer styles are IPAs, sour ales, and some saisons).

2. Further to the above, beer is very high in carbs compared with the alternatives (wine and spirits). A little beer within an hour of your run will, along with healthy nutritional, beer-friendly, companions like cheese and crackers or carrots and hummus, aid your recovery.

3. One of beer's principal ingredients is hops, and hops contain a brain-calming, soporific chemicals used for centuries as sleep-aids.In contrast to the poison-shock affect of other alcoholic beverages, beer will not fire you up (i.e. if sipped in small quantities and not guzzled). Timed properly, a little beer can be an effective tool in your post-run wind-down process. For this reason, it is never wise to consume beer before or between runs!

4. Unlike the alternatives, beer comes in a wide range of ABVs (from kettle sours at 3.5% to imperial stouts at 12-15%) and in very portable single-serving packages (i.e small bottles and, increasingly, cans). Conventional wisdom about the incompatibility of serious fitness pursuits and alcohol consumption is, to some extent, correct. Timed poorly or in excess quantities, alcohol consumption WILL undermine your training and overall performance, mainly by interrupting your sleep and, in the longer term, impairing your general health. This makes beer the ideal alcoholic beverage for the serious runner who chooses to imbibe. Spirits are too alcoholic, and they don't address the aforementioned body hunger, and wine-- also relatively high in alcohol-- typically comes in larger bottles that, if opened, will tempt overindulgence.

5. Beer, even the very best on offer, is much cheaper than alternatives of equivalent quality. And we all know that serious runners, if they are not hovering on the edge of penury, are a frugal bunch.

Finally, a general note about alcohol consumption and athletic performance. The very long list of successful athletes who drink alcohol suggests that moderate consumption is compatible with serious training. This does not mean, however, that serious athletes are immune from the various factors that lead to severe, compulsive overindulgence within a small subset of all drinkers. Whether an athlete or not, complete abstention from alcohol is, obviously, a perfectly reasonable choice. In fact, the vast majority of younger athletes (those under the age of, say, 22) are best to wait till they have acquired fully developed adult impulse-control before adding beer to their daily regime. The consumption of beer by athletes requires a highly disciplined drinking style-- rather akin to the athletic lifestyle in general. As a rule, if you know you can't drink one unit of beer without wanting 3 more, best not to crack the first one. Besides, if you are drinking the quality of beverage I've been referring to throughout, you will experience relatively diminished pleasure after your first hit. Best, therefore, to save that second one for another day, when it will deliver it fullest flavour punch. The adage that guides my beer love is, increasingly: Drink less to enjoy more!

If you're interested in hearing of more of my thoughts on beer and running-- including the best styles for your training and racing seasons; the top brews on offer in your particular area; profiles of top runners and their beers; and, the best running/beer tourism destinations, replete with bar/brewery and running route particulars-- visit again or leave your questions in the comment section.

Cheers!