Beer, Running, and Why We Need Them-- Now More than Ever

Allow me to be a little earnest-- maybe even somewhat existential--about the foci of this blog. Poo-poo-ers of the entire enterprise of writing about beer, running, and their synergy-- not least my own tee totaling, sugar-addicted, assistant coach/occasional designated driver-- are most likely to wax dismissive about the beer side of the thing. Beer, they're inclined to say, is just beer; and that, while "fine", beer is not worth talking about, let alone caring about as regards how it tastes, or who made it for us, and how. As for the running part, most people are willing to tolerate its serious treatment, but only insofar as they see it as physically healthy on an individual level. For many people, including people who run, any interest beyond that is strictly a sub-cultural matter, or else just another element of the white noise of narcissism hissing in the background of our daily lives. I am here to make the modest but serious case for why craft beer (i.e. beer made for you with vision and purpose) and running are, for similar reasons, deeply important for modern life today.

Let start with the fact that making great beer and training to cover long distances as fast as possible are both gratuitously difficult.

It is, of course, very easy to make beer that hundreds of millions of people will find "acceptable", and that will disappear into the basic, taken-for-granted functionality of daily life-- the kind of product people will refer to when they say, as this Globe and Mail editorialist did last weekend, in a weak defense of "crappy beer": "sometimes I just want a cold beer". And, of course, running has been almost completely gratuitous since at least the time of Phidippides, being one of the slowest and least efficient ways to cover long distances, as good as we human animals happen to be at it.

But when it comes to craft beer and training to race long distances on foot, the extra difficulty is the point of the whole business. Life of the kind human beings are uniquely capable of living-- life beyond the realm of instinct and mere physical necessity-- begins with activities that are freely chosen because their performance makes us reflect on what it means to be alive at all. These activities are by definition going to be challenging of our uniquely human capacities, whether physical, mental, or creative/spiritual. Because the age in which we live is characterized by the increasingly unfashionability of anything that is difficult, or that requires our undivided, unmediated attention, many of these humanizing activities-- e.g. reading serious fiction, quilting, learning a new language, or to play a musical instrument-- are also going to seem earnestly old-fashioned, even fusty. And if/when the value of their pursuit is defended, it will often be in terms of their functionality for some other, more important, undertaking, such as training "the brain" to be better at a "job" (i.e. something that pays money that will enable more distracted consumption), or simply living longer without becoming demented or infirm-- in other words, rarely as ends-in-themselves.

Then, alongside the actual devaluing of difficult and authentically human pursuits, we see the attempts of marketing and advertising to appropriate the language of authentic meaning in order to sell mere consumption-- the easiest and least authentically human thing there is-- as a means to achieve them, or at least their pastiche. And all without a trace of irony!

Thus we have the words "artisanal", "local", "small batch", "hand-crafted" attached to products that may or may not be any of these things, or may not actually need to be in order to serve their functional purpose (and often mass-produced things from far away-- things like grain, furniture, and even fruits and vegetables-- get their basic job done as well, and more cheaply, thus affordably, than their "local", "artisanal" alternatives.) Often, the marketing of something as one of the above things is just an excuse to charge gullible, well-heeled customers more money for a product that is no different or better than its mass-produced alternative. Think, here, of Whole Foods.  

Craft beer and running, on the other hand, are two examples of the real, human deal. Beer, like a good meal, is something that really does benefit from smaller batch and local production (though not when it comes to the sourcing of ingredients). The "crafty-ness" of craft beer is distinctly NOT a marketing gimmick. What makes it difficult to produce well, and what limits its scale-ability, is also what makes it special. And whether a stunning craft beer is "good for you", in some hygienic sense, is completely irrelevant. Like many things, it will end you prematurely if misused (and maybe even slightly prematurely even if used properly-- the jury is out on that one). But its value can't be measured in these terms; its value in the experiencing and in the reflecting upon (not to mention in the making, for those with the skill). It is only "good for you" in the way that anything that makes you authentically enjoy the life you are living is "good for you". The rewards of serious running are likewise strictly in the doing-- in the overcoming, and in the reflecting on the experience of being a creature that needs to struggle to overcome things in order to be truly alive. After all, even the most health-conscious, hypochondriac runner knows that it can't all be about living longer or warding off dementia. Deep down, we all register the truth of the old t-shirt meme about eating right, living well, and dying anyway. We run because it lights us up in ways that we can't quite understand, but that go straight to something deep and very old within us.

But perhaps most importantly, and unlike those things in life that are mere means to some other end-- like getting "physically healthy"-- or that exist to distract us, craft beer and running are two things that promote authentic sociability-- that, in other words, bring us together in friendly and open ways. Things that are pitched as making us "healthier/better" are always addressed to our lone, individual selves, pitted against one another in competition for scarce resources, or against natural decline itself. Likewise for things meant to distract  or merely "amuse" us; they tend to be isolating. Like many other odd, difficult, or increasingly old-fashioned pursuits, craft beer and running have the capacity to create communities. Anyone who inhabits the worlds of both beer and serious running will know how much aficionados love to gather-- online or in person-- and talk about the finer points of the thing they love. Just as often, they will enjoy, in silent reflection and wonder, the community of people who understand, even if they can't clearly say it, what's great, even profound, about the thing they love. When it comes to craft beer, we reflect on and talk about the thing as a product ingeniously made to delight us with its creativity and sensory brilliance. We think about the beer's creator, and his/her hybrid technical/culinary virtuosity-- but also generosity in having devoted him/herself so completely to something so tricky and, for most, so relatively unremunerative (because even the best beer is almost always priced modestly when compared with wine and spirits of similar caliber). When it comes to running, we talk about the joy of a plan well executed-- and rewarded-- or of the heartbreak of unexpected failure, and we think about how many many other runners, at all levels, and at any given time, are experiencing one or the other. And we support each other by listening, complimenting, celebrating, or commiserating.

Increasingly, and brilliantly, these two worlds come together, when runners, freshly exercised, assemble to enjoy the growing abundance of good beer that the craft brewing revolution has bestowed. And what, pray tell, do we need more of these days than authentic sociability?

Hopping Along in... London, Ontario:

Last week's running travel took me to the "other" London (Ontario), which shares with its namesake...very little! One thing the two do have in common, however, is a lovely river running through them (London-the-lesser's is much smaller, and nowhere near the sea, but probably cleaner, for what that's worth). And along that river is a very nice running and biking trail-- the Thames River Trail. The trail is gently rolling and paved, but you can get onto the grass alongside the asphalt here and there if you want to. It is generally leafy, but with several open views of the downtown skyline. The times I have run on it it has been lightly trafficked and thus blissfully quiet and free of distraction. If there are interesting or historically notable landmarks along it, I have yet to see them. You would have to ask a member of the thriving running community there, such as marathon star Leslie Sexton, who undoubtedly knows this trail the way veteran swimmers know the black line at the bottom of a pool! I accessed the trail very quickly and easily from the Western University campus, so check it out if you are in the vicinity for business or pleasure. For quiet, convivial running in the immediate environs of mid-sized Canadian city, it is hard to do better.

The beer highlight of my London excursions is always dinner and pours at the outstanding Milos Craft Beer Emporium, a bit of a curiosity in a downtown otherwise catering to a distinctly macro, sports-bar palate. Milos consistently offers the all-star line-up of Ontario crafts, with a particular fondness for the very fine Bellwoods Brewery stable of IPAs, pales, and sours, of which I partook (in running terms, compare Bellwoods  to the the new men's London Western TC distance group-- lots of sub-30s). But proprietor Milos (a Czech transplant, I am told) went whole-other-level on this occasion by listing a bottle of the vanishingly rare-- indeed, all but unavailable in Canada-- Westvleteren 12, a Belgian abbey ale of world renown. "Westy" 12 is a quadrupel ale weighing in at 10.3 abv. Despite the scandalous price, I split one with friend and local elite Chris Ballestrini, seen below with the prize! As Chris, experiencing his first taste of the beer could--and exuberantly did--attest, Westy 12 is a divine mystery. It smells like the grape flavouring familiar to drinkers of children's pop beverages and/or young adult "alco-pops", but the cloying aroma instantly gives way on the palate to the familiar nut and dark, sweet fruit flavour notes of the quadrupel, along with the bitter yeastiness that is a feature of all belgian strong ales. The combined effect of the sweet, faux fruit smell and heavy malt middle was one of baffling lightness. Until it actually hit the brain, there was no hint of the 10.3% within. I have sampled many quads, and this one is very close to sui generis, like many of the best of other styles (e.g. Heady Topper, among IPAs). How fast is a Westy 12? As a long established 26:49 performer, it could be the Sammy Kipketer of beers!