Beer and Running

There may be a tangential relationship between today’s post about beer and running but as I start to write, I’m not sure what it might be.   I’ve been thinking (or drinking) a lot about beer this past week.  Being of a certain age, my first excursions into beer were more about quantity than quality.  There was a certain cache to buying a $.99 six pack of Tiger Ale from the Price Chopper back in 1975.  $.99 went a lot farther back then, but it was still VERY cheap ale.   Going to a party at Albany State University (SUNYA) meant encountering a huge room with multiple tapped kegs of Schlitz and a beer flood to slide through on the floors.  Drinking beer was purely about getting a buzz on; there were no thoughts about flavor.

I was back in upstate NY this past weekend and beer is not what it was back in the 70’s.   As my husband and I traveled around, we encountered a number of small breweries including Davidson’s and Coopers Cave in Glens Falls, NY.  Both of these beers were very drinkable and fresh as we were in the brewery town.  A 12oz “pint” now goes for about $5, a long way even with inflation factored in, from $.99 a six pack.  I don’t know whether it is purely my own aging or a sign of the times that beer, for the most part, is no longer about quantity but now squarely about quality.  No one wants to spend $5 and get a pint of swill (although we will still do that and ball games but that’s another story.)   There’s something about stepping into a warm, lively tavern in a cold northern town and having a full bodied, IPA, that is almost magical.  Adding to that magic is the fact that smoking is no longer allowed in the taverns.   Maybe that’s the key, when bars were filled with smoke you couldn’t taste the beer anyway so why bother drinking good ones.  But now that the air is clean, our taste buds work, and we want good beers.   ….and, here comes the running link J  I also think when we work our bodies hard we don’t want to fill it with empty calories.  If we’re going to drink carbohydrates, we want to be satisfied with something flavorful.

Thursday night I spent a few (OK, more than a few) at Two Brothers Tap House at the Brewery in Warrenville, IL with a friend.  First, let me say that I was totally impressed that they were serving full pints of their craft beers from $4 to $6.   It was noticed.  Their Outlaw IPA and Sidekick Pale Ales were both tasty.   I also appreciated that the bartender comp’ed us a round.   That doesn’t happen much these days.   The whole experience was about enjoying the beers and friendship, not about getting hammered on swill.  

Ran my first 10K this morning.  The Plainfield North HS Fastcat.  I should have checked out the field from last year before I registered.  People were fast.  I didn't come in last but was 101 out of 105.  There weren't many people over 50 running this race.  So here's the beer connection.  While we were waiting for the race to start, the man next to me told me had an emergency beer in the car.  We laughed and said "maybe since we are in a HS parking lot we should just skip the race and drink it"  We didn't :-)