And no, the winning runners weren’t actually crowned, but the race did take place in England so we’re ‘running’ with that.

Here’s the deal…

In the vast world of extreme sports, there exists a sub-culture known as “digestive athletics.” The most celebrated of these underworld sporting events is the Beer Mile.

The foundation of any true beer mile is built upon two things: drinking beer and running a mile. The most common format of the beer mile requires a single participant to drink a full-sized beer, run a quarter mile, then repeat the process three more times.

This results in the consumption of four beers and the running of four quarter miles (hence the beer mile). The entire process is timed. And the total time is generally used as a measuring stick of competency.

No one can date the actual origins of the Beer Mile competitions but according to its official website is roots can be traced back to parts of Florida and New England college campuses in the US, and as far away as Indonesia and (most notably Ontario) in Canada.

A weak performance by ACB’s Tom Bobak at 2021 Beer Mile World Classic

In the late 90s, Beermile.com adopted some of the basic Kingston, Ontario rules, then added a few more in an effort to standardize the sport. The rules were further formalized at the onset of the Beer Mile World Classic, the official beer mile world championship used in international competition.

Billed as the “Olympics of Beer Running” this year’s Beer Mile Classic, which took place in Manchester, England on October, 23^rd. And Canada’s Corey Bellemore took home his third world title with a new world-record time of 4:28.1, making him the first person to ever complete the grueling event in under 4:30.

In 2018 Bellemore appeared to have demolished his own world record (4:33) by nine seconds at the classic, only to see his moment of beer-drenched glory slip through his hands when he was disqualified, along with two other runners with top-ten times, for not finishing his beer (a critical component of the race).

In the women’s competition, Allison Grace Morgan, the current world record-holder, took home the Queen’s Trophy, her third consecutive win with a beer fueled 6:32.2 performance.