Guinness, while amazing, is under 5% as well.
Guinness, while amazing, is under 5% as well.
I'd say your ability to chug is only important on the first beer. After that, it all depends on your ability to keep the beer down. Burping a lot will be key. And I would go with cold beer. It's more difficult to chug, but you'll probably be less likely to puke it all up.
Don't have my time yet but I did pretty well for a rookie, although I made some tragic mistakes. Our beer mile had 30-40 competitors. I went with Simpler Times (6.2% alcohol brew from Trader Joe's), lukewarm. I ran 18 this morning so I wasn't expecting anything amazing.
First beer went down too quick. I was 3rd off the start but by the time I reached the second beer, I was 6th and the faster guys were bearing down on me. Beer two and three went down well and I held my position only because I could drink faster than almost everyone. My hold on 6th dwindled a little more each lap. Beer 4 took FOREVER and I left the line around 7:00 and in 12-15th and held on for dear life. Made it to the finish and 30 seconds later I threw up lunch. Not a bad run.
My mistakes
Beer - Warm lager is not the way to go. Too sweet and too much alcohol. Seemed to expand in my stomach each loop. Should have gone with the High Life...
Lunch - I was famished after my morning run and ate a small breakfast. I had a quesadilla and a veggie burger wrap for lunch with 2 beers. WAY too much food. A good portion reappeared after the run...
Drank too fast - I should have known when I was in 6th and multiple guys that run significantly faster than I do sans beer were behind me, I was drinking too fast...
I'm going to put together next year's plan with a specific training period designed to peak for this race.
I'd say 90% of serious Beer Milers use High Life, and it's chilly. The rest use Bud Heavy because they are used to it.
My qualifications: 6 career legit beer miles. 6:23 PR. 4 non-pukes, 2 pukes.
My second best time is over 7, I crushed my first beer mile then really hit a wall.
Chilled beer. Warm expands too much as it leaves the bottle and heads for the stomach. Find something with low carbonation. Maybe try a Porter. Guinness is gorgeous but percentage-wise too light to qualify by Kingston rules. Find something similar with 5%. Drink it as fast as you can. It's hard, but if you can shut off the mind's impulse to breathe while you're drinking, for 10 seconds or so, you're golden. Take 50 meters to burp and to get back up to speed. Remember when Steve Jones changed the face of marathoning? He raced it from the gun. Same with the beer mile ... don't hold back.