Originally published in the Scandinavian Brewers' Review, December 2015.
Beer and Running in Canada
I was recently asked to put together an article detailing 42 ways beer & running play together in Canada. Unfortunately the final copy turned out dramatically shorter and quite a bit different from what my editor led me to believe. So here’s the full article, pretty much as it left my word processor.
Maybe you’ve seen the conflicting studies about the merits of beer as a recovery drink. Does it really help with re-hydration or are you actually undoing some of the positive effects that come from a good run? The simple truth is a beer after running isn’t going to do you a world of harm, nor is it going to make you significantly more prepared for the next time you lock your laces. So just drink it and be happy.
Beer & running go together like race kits & Instagram. And in Canada, we pair a race and a chaser very, very well. From West to East, in downtown cores, country lanes and wooded trails, Canadian Milers love beer as much as Canadian Marathoners love beer. You probably don’t need any more reasons to put the two together, but the next time you’re sitting at a pub, trying to rub the knot out of your aching calf, here’s 42 things you can ponder about how beer and running intersect in the Great White North.
- The Beer Mile is Canada’s gift to the rest of the beer running world. Back in 1989, seven friends in their late teens and early twenties got together for the first unofficial run, in Burlington, Ontario.
- One of those seven was 17-year-old (underage drinker) Graham Hood, who would go on to finish ninth in the 1,500 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
- Members of that original seven brought the Beer Mile to Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where the Kingston Classic set down the official ground rules – known as the Kingston Rules – which still govern the sport today.
- In 1997, Canada’s Seanna Robinson set the Women’s world record in a time of 6:42. Her world-beating mark would hold up until 2014. Not surprisingly, Robinson was a student at Queen’s.
- American James “The Beast” Neilson, who brought the Beer Mile to new prominence when he ran sub-5:00 last year… is actually born and raised in Canada.
- On August 8th, Mississauga’s Lewis Kent ran the fastest beer mile ever – a blistering 4:55.78 – breaking the record Australian Josh Harris set just one day earlier.
- I spoke to Kent two days prior to his world-beating mark. The 21-year-old (get your head around that – he still gets carded every time he buys racing supplies) is confident he can still go faster. “I haven’t hit a plateau yet. Since October I have shaved over a minute off my time and continue to cut off big chunks of time. I feel I still have quite a bit of room for improvement, and aim to break 4:55 by the end of 2015.”
Lewis Kent at the Toronto Spring Beer Mile. Photo: Koray Salih - Kent and his friends are pioneering a new beer running activity he calls the Pub Run. “We do our best to set fair teams of 5-6, and create a list of pubs you must run to, in order. The catch: each team must finish a pitcher at each bar.” The number of pubs and distance between each is based on the number of participants.
- Sidenote: Canadian sprinting phenom Andre de Grasse has to return to Canada if he wants to drink beer legally. The 20-year-old spends most of the year racing for the University of Southern California (USC).
- Beer Miles happen all over Canada but the most interesting might be the Trail Beer Mile an hour north of Ottawa… which means it’s in Québec, so 18-year-olds are welcome to join (actually so are the younger set, but they drink root beer, instead of the full-strength beverage from Ottawa’s Broadhead Brewing). Unlike a “traditional” beer mile contested on an oval track, this one loops a 400-meter path in the woods.
- Brennan Harvey, one of the organizers of the Toronto Beer Mile (which has run seasonally since 2012) recalls one memorable race when competitors started shotgunning still more brews 100 meters after finishing their four beer in four laps.
Lewis Kent (in orange) joins RunTOBeer, 2 days after setting the BeerMile world record. Photo: William Chaupiz, Night Terrors Running Crew - Two days after recently setting the new world record, Kent and fellow Canadian Beer Mile teammate, Phil Parrot Migas, joined RunTOBeer, accompanying 110 others en route to Toronto’s Rainhard Brewery.
*Disclosure: RunTOBeer – Toronto’s craft beer running club – started in 2014 when I came up with the idea to get other runners together for a light workout before hitting a pub. Our first two runs, before we ever thought of naming the club, featured a grand total of two runners: Tej Sandhu & me. We now have more than 850 members, run at least once every two weeks and end our runs with free beer supplied by a sponsoring brewery.- Out on the left side of the country, the East Van Running Crew does something similar, hitting up different breweries at finale of each journey. Crew leader Ryan Chilibeck says EVRC tested a couple other meeting points before trying breweries, but the magic just wasn’t there. “We tried Parallel 49 Brewery on a Monday Night in June of 2014 and it just felt right. There was free parking, it was a staple of East Vancouver and people got beer after their run… it was perfect. We have done just over 52 weeks of brewery meetings (with a couple of pizza/beer runs thrown in) and don’t plan on changing the format any time soon.”
- Chilibeck also drew my attention to the Bridge Brewing North Shore Growler 10k, wherein runners carry two 1.89l growlers (of water) the entire distance. What makes this particularly awesome is that 24 of the 25 registrants actually finished the run, which entitled each to one month of two growlers being refilled each week, with North Shore Pale Ale. BeerMeBC.com calculated that as “363 litres of beer that was given away, not including a few pints consumed at the event.”
- In Calgary meanwhile, the Calgary 5k Run and Beer Fest offers a unlimited amounts craft beer at the end of the short run, for a $39.99 entrance fee.,
- At the other end of the Dominion, the Fredericton Beer Run has been around since 2013 and this year attracted more than 300 runners, all of whom ended at a festival featuring 18 different breweries, plus cider and mead. Event spokesperson Lloyd Chambers said the run is staged annually on New Brunswick Day, to cap off summer long weekend. “We actually host the Fredericton Craft Beer Festival in March and the run came out of the idea of pairing our love of beer and running. We planned a small event to keep craft beer visible in the summer and it just took off.” The Fredericton Beer Run has 4k, 6k and 12k distances.
- Down the road in Saint John, they saw the success of their New Brunswick neighbours and pulled together the first Port City Beer Run in May of this year. Distances for that race were 3k, 5k and 10k.
- You know who else does 3k, 5k and 10k? RunTOBeer. We do things differently from any other club I’ve seen however. Rather than everyone starting at the same point, our 10k runners travel half the distance where they collect the 5k crew. 2k later we meet up with the rest of the runners and all drink together.
At RunTOBeer, we all drink together… like here at Mill Street Beer Hall. - RunTOBeer inspired the soon-to-launch Winnipeg beer running group, PEG Beer Run Club. Headquarted at PEG Beer Co – a brewpub expected to open this December in the city’s Exchange District – runs will take place Sundays, ending back at the clubhouse. Says President & Founder Nicole Barry, “Our run club details will be announced on Twitter @PEGBeerCo this fall. We are also planning a bike club, x-country ski club, and a yoga club. Craft beer and active living fit so well together.” Barry – who hoped to start the running club earlier, but broke her foot – likes to follow her own runs with a Phillip’s Bottle Rocket ISA.
- Steve Abrams, co-founder of Toronto’s Mill Street Brewery, has been a runner since high school, when he was active in cross country and track. In 2012, he started taking it more seriously to honour the terms of a New Year’s Resolution. “I woke up with a particularly brutal hangover and decided this was the year I was going to really get back in shape and complete a full Marathon. So I signed up for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, New Years Day and waited until the spring thaw to start serious training. I completed the Marathon with a less-than-stellar time but was proud nonetheless of the accomplishment.” His go-to beers after running: Pilsner in the summer, or a Mill Street Tankhouse or Oktoberfest when the leaves start to change colour.
- Another fan of Tankhouse is Canada Running Series Race Director Alan Brookes, whose office is stumbling distance from Mill Street’s Distillery District brewpub (not that he ever drinks during office hours, he assures me).
- Last year Mill Street hosted the first “beer run tune-up” in advance of the 2014 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. It was so successful that other Toronto breweries – Amsterdam Brewhouse, Left Field Brewery and Rainhard Brewing – have also hosted tune-ups with Canada Running Series. Mill Street hosted its 2nd annual, on September 13th.
Coors Light Half Marathon, circa 1991. Photo: Canada Running Series - Brookes says his organization’s ties to beer go back to its earliest days, when Coors Light hosted its first Toronto Half Marathon (that year there was no Toronto Marathon). At the time, according to Brookes, the radio market in Toronto was becoming saturated, and classic rock station Q107 came up with a plan to hang on to Molson’s advertising dollars. Molson had got the license to brew Coors Light in Canada when it was still commonly tagged as The Silver Bullet. “It was positioned as a downtown, yuppie beverage.” The radio ad exec had the idea to go to Molson and say that if he didn’t start spreading his beer money around to all the other outlets in town, “he would give them this amazing, healthy lifestyle, six-pack of road races in downtown Toronto as a gift-with-purchase.” Instead of just getting just a bunch of 30-second spots “he would have these unforgettable, run experience occasions.” From that came the Coors Light Toronto Half Marathon and 5k.
- Winners in the early days – including American Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the first ever Women’s Olympic Marathon in 1984 – received trophies that resembled Coors Light cans with runners atop.
Alan Brookes with Joan Benoit Samuelson, 1991 (note the trophies). Photo: Canada Running Series - Vancouver’s Rob Watson, who finished eighth in the Men’s Marathon at the recent Pan Am games, generously sprinkles his social media accounts and podcasts with references to his love for craft beer. Follow him at twitter.com/robbiedxc
- Know who else loves beer? If you believe her Twitter bio, London, Ontario’s Lanni Marchant, who also happens to be the Canadian Women’s record holder in the Marathon.
- Canada Running Series is currently working with RunTOBeer to add more beer-related events to this year’s Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, including a visitors’ pub guide and post-Marathon festivities.
- Another RunTOBeer partnership is Canada Beer Run, which did its Toronto leg in September, starting and ending at the Mill Street brewpub. We did a Father’s Day tune-up run to boost exposure and registration for the Toronto Beer Run. All 500 spaces for the 11.5 km route, which paused at 3 Brewers on Adelaide, Steam Whistle Brewery, Amsterdam Brewhouse and 3 Brewers on Yonge sold out. Canada Beer Run encourages costumes, water guns, whistles and plenty of other mayhem.
- The Toronto run spun out from the success of the Ottawa Beer Run, which launched in 2103 and now sells out an impressive 1,000 spaces. It’s grown so large that two separate routes – 9.5k and 14.5k options — are mapped to accommodate everyone. Along the way, runners sip from Big Rig, Lowertown, Beyond the Pale, Mill Street, Clock Tower, 3 Brewers and Kichesippi breweries.
Canada Beer Run - The model branched out even further this year, with Collingwood’s beer run set to debut in early October. Featuring stops at Side Launch Brewery, The Collingwood Brewery, Northwinds Brewhouse and a station serving MacLean’s Ales (from nearby Grey County), the actual route should be announced shortly. “We were thrilled to add Collingwood as a new event this year,” says Sara Sterling. “The response from the town, the breweries and the local folks has been awesome so far!”
- Look for the fourth location – Kitchener-Waterloo – to be added to the 2016 calendar.
- Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, doesn’t that region already have a run that coincides with the largest Oktoberfest outside Germany? They do. They have the K-W Oktoberfest 5k fun run. Oddly, it has absolutely nothing to do with beer.
- Edmonton’s Hash House Harriers seem to have found a way to include brewskis into any type of occasion, including snowshoeing during the winter and monthly runs on the Friday closest to the full moon. Impressive!
- Speaking of monthly runs, the Mikkeller Running Club now has chapters in three Canadian cities. Part of a worldwide network that started in Copenhagen in 2014, members purchase a Mikkeller Running Club t-shirt, which entitles then to a free glass of Mikkeller beer at the end of each run. So if a runner from Chicago happens to be in Toronto on the first Saturday of the month – as happened in August – he can wear the shirt he brought from home and still collect his drink at the end of 5k.
Alex, with a Mikkeller Running Club shirt from Chicago - Montréal launched the first Canadian chapter in May, hosted by Brasserie Harricana. The brewery itself only opened in December. “My partners and I are sports enthusiasts – our beers are numbered instead of named, in honor of our sport jerseys,” explains Head Brewer Mathieu Garceau-Tremblay. “When I discovered MRC on Facebook it seemed natural to host the chapter here in Montreal (I am a big fan of their beers). The owner Marie-Pier Veilleux ran marathons a few years ago – when I presented the project everyone here was really excited. We still don’t know what’s going to happen during wintertime. We will conduct a small survey to see if people are courageous enough to run at minus 20.”
- Vancouver’s MRC is led by Mark Galvani, a certified beer judge and manager of Steamworks Liquor Store in Gastown. Because Mikkeller Beer is curiously difficult to get into British Columbia, the Vancouver club ends each run at Steel Toad Brewpub, and drinks from the brewery’s own taps.
- The Toronto chapter of MRC came about after my RunTOBeer co-director, Tej Sandhu, happened to be in the U.K. when the London chapter debuted. One thing led to another, and we completed our first MRC run in June, starting and ending at the Bier Markt King West. Unlike our friends in Montréal, we already know we’ll be running through the winter.
- The Achilles 5k St. Patrick’s Day run starts and finishes at Toronto’s historic Roundhouse; home to Steam Whistle. The downtown brewery cheerfully shares its popular Pilsner at the conclusion of the race.
- If you’re looking for something a bit more rural, The County Marathon in Ontario’s Prince Edward County offers runners a free beer from Barley Days at the finish.
RunTOBeer from Muskoka to Sawdust City, September 2015 - Meanwhile, up in Ontario’s cottage country, Sawdust City Brewing organized a September 19th run, from Muskoka Brewery to their own brewery, some 13km away. RunTOBeer took 20 runners from Toronto, on a bus provided by Sawdust City. Brewmaster Sam Corbeil is a very active runner himself.
- Another trail run in the same area falls on October 4th, sponsored by Muskoka Brewery. It, too, is connected to RunTOBeer. We’re did a series of three “Venture Off the Beaten Path” trail runs in Toronto’s ravine and trails, with free pints of Muskoka Detour at the end of each session. Participants’ names were put into a draw for passage to the Muskoka run, with each additional pint of Detour purchased earning runners another entry into the draw.
Proost, Koyt
This article appeared in the Scandinavian Brewers' Review, September 2015.
RunTOBeer goes to Cottage Country!
Oh man am I excited about this one!
Saturday, September 19th, RunTOBeer is shuttling 20 runners to the Muskoka Brewery, kicking them off the bus, then telling them if they want to get back to Toronto they need to get themselves to Gravenhurst, some 13k away.
Sawdust City Brewery is sponsoring the trip, which I reaaaaally hope will become an annual event.
More details coming soon, to: Facebook.com/groups/RunTOBeer
Lewis Kent Sets New World Mark in the Beer Mile
This is a bit of an add-on to Friday’s post… because Lewis Kent apparently set the best time in the world just hours after I published.
Unfortunately the video quality isn’t great — I have no idea how the Powers-That-Be in the Beer Mile world will assess is — but this guy is well worth your support.
Get your Canadian Beer Mile Team t-shirt at http://teespring.com/TeamCanadaBeerMile
Lewis Kent needs your help
This guy needs an Ontario craft brewer to sponsor him.
A few months ago, while my wife was out of the country, I thought it would be a good idea to try my first Beer Mile. I wasn’t wrong.
My time wasn’t great, but I did have a great time. The best part though, was being in a field where one of the fastest Beer Miles ever was taking place.
The guy who did this is 21. In fact Lewis Kent still gets carded every time he buys the beer he needs to compete (sidenote: Andre De Grasse is still 20, and can’t legally purchase beer where he spends most of the year). Since October, Lewis has shaved more than a minute off his time, and continues to improve at a pace that could see him crowned World Champion as early as this year.
In a couple weeks he joins other members of Team Canada at the World Beer Mile Classic in San Francisco. You might already know Canadians invented the Beer Mile and claim a staggering number of the top times. This guy though… he’s something else.
Right now Lewis is looking for a sponsor – a brewery that wants to have the beer-of-record when the world mark falls. And take note: beermile.com isn’t updating as frequently as it should be, but they do list the beer in the stats.
To be eligible, the beer needs to be in 355ml packaging — ideally bottles — and should be at least (definitely not much more than) 5.0% ABV.
To get a sense of just how remarkable the Mississauga runner is, here’s a video taken last month, where Lewis (in yellow) set the 3rd fastest time ever. The guy behind him — Phil Parrot Migas, also drinking Amsterdam Blonde — set the 9th best mark in history.
They may have both fallen one place, as Australian Josh Harris awaits verification of his recently completed 4:56.2. Lewis tells me though, he expects to be under 4:55 before 2016 rolls around.
Short of sponsoring Lewis, you can still help by purchasing a Team Canada Beer Mile t-shirt,
RunTOBeer Goes To Cottage Country!
JUST ANNOUNCED: We’ve added three trail runs in the next couple months, each of which ends with a free glass of Muskoka Beer and chance to win passage to a special October trail run in Muskoka!
More details for our “Venture Off The Beaten Path” series will be posted on the RunTOBeer Facebook Group.
Investing in the Next Generation of Politicians
Mike Layton met me on the patio at beerbistro on a sunny afternoon in June, and just as he settled in, before I even started recording, he recounted a story from his youth. His father had acted as auctioneer for charity and one of the items up for bid was a beer fridge from Upper Canada Brewing. Jack Layton announced to his wife beforehand that he wanted the fridge, so each time someone signalled, he would reflexively point the next bid to Olivia Chow, strategically placed in the crowd. Eventually, she won.
That appliance became a daily craft beer reminder for Mike Layton, chilling his bottles as he worked through a Masters in Urban Planning at the U of T. Although he readily admits campaigning for the industry is new to him, he insists his appreciation for flavourful beer is long standing.
I was skeptical when I interviewed the Councillor for Trinity Bellwoods. NOW Magazine assigned the piece for its annual Beer Guide based on Layton’s suggestion – and subsequent motion to council – that Toronto should be the Craft Beer Capital of the World.
It reeked of posturing. I mean, the whole notion is absurd. I’m optimistic about where the city’s craft beer scene is going, but capital? Of the world? Keep drinking, Mike.
It turns out he didn’t really mean it. Well, he did… but not reeeally. As I mentioned in NOW, Layton knew he was being more than a little grandiose when he inserted that statement into his motion. But it wasn’t just for the sake of headlines. His submission (technically a joint motion with Councillor Gord Perks, although his office had no interest in scheduling an interview) passed at Economic Development Committee on April 16th, and now gives council a mandate to compel staff to make things easier for those involved with craft beer.
“It allows us to pull together other divisions from planning, zoning and building and say ‘Look guys, council has said to support this sector.’ Why don’t we have clear direction about what brewery means and what brewpub means… and how you interpret it when it sits on your desk?”
City bureaucrats, he told me (between sips of Shillow Beer Co‘s Sass on the Side), are referencing bylaws that are really old or else citing something they think they know, but might not entirely understand. “And that’s not the level of certainty you want. We should be able to give one answer.
“It seems so simple, but I think we’ve made it confusing. And because people… they’re human, they’re interpreting stuff, right? I don’t think we have a good, standard definition of brewery anywhere.”
Fixing that is a priority, but lobbying the provincial government to get its own shit together, isn’t. Relaxing restrictions on where and when you can drink, isn’t. And what do you do with a problem like Paula Fletcher?
Right. We’ve got a long way to go.
Though I applaud Mike Layton for his new “Cask Force” and sincerely believe things will improve as a result of his efforts, we need to get a lot more beer fridges in the homes of future politicians if Toronto is ever going to be the craft beer capital of anything.
Beau’s All Natural Maddaddamite’s NooBroo
Inspired by the Margaret Atwood MaddAddam trilogy, Beau’s All Natural MaddAddamites NooBroo Gruit (5.2%) is an unhopped ale, infused herbs and berries.
I prefer some of Beau’s earlier gruits, like St. Luke’s Verse (really tasty) and Bog Water (not bad at all), just as I liked Atwood’s first offering in the trilogy, Oryx & Crake (fantastic!) better than Year of the Flood (it was okay) and MaddAddam (I wanted the pigoons to take out the insufferable, long-winded Toby, from about page 10).
If you’re just getting into Atwood, Blind Assassin, Alias Grace and Oryx & Crake are my three faves. Cat’s Eye and The Handmaid’s Tale are also excellent. I’d take a pass on The Edible Woman, Life Before Man and Robber Bride.
Oh, and NooBroo is now available at the LCBO. A portion of each sale goes to nature conservancy.
Can T.O. Ever Be Beer City?
Originally published in NOW Magazine's 2015 Beer Guide
BrewScout 