The brewery running clubs that quench a thirst and foster a community
When Mexican-born Oliver Herrera moved to Melbourne four years ago after spending many years as an aid worker abroad, he had few friends and was lonely.
His Australian wife, Amelia, tried to help him. He knew Herrera liked to run and liked to drink beer.
He found the perfect pastime on social media: a brewery running club.
Herrera hasn’t looked back since joining Nthside Collective’s free Friday night runsIt starts at Inner North Brewing Company, a microbrewery in Brunswick.
Now he takes his dog Chela with him.
Herrera, who used to run alone but now offers both social and fitness opportunities together, said, “It changed my life.”
The Nthside Collective night is one of many running sessions linked to breweries and bars popping up across Melbourne.
Nthside Collective members run seven kilometers, including around Princes Park; Here, some runners take shortcuts if needed and return to the brewery for a beer.
The group’s founder, three-time Olympic runner Dave McNeill, said beer and running are not mutually exclusive and that “for the most part, what we do is pretty healthy.”
McNeill, now a physical therapist and running coach, said he occasionally had beers with his coach and teammates during his years traveling the world as an elite athlete.
He is proud that Nthside Collective is “creating new social connection for so many people.”
Mal McLeod, from Warragul, who travels 120 kilometers every Friday to join the group, has previously run and cycled alone, and said it was “very good for my mental health as well as my physical health”.
Inner North Brewing owner Zachary Skerritt, who sometimes works with the group, said the club supports a community.
A separate brewery operating group, Australian Beer Milers Clubmeets at a different brewery each month to run five kilometers on Saturday afternoons.
Founder Mel Vandewater said members mostly avoided inner-suburban venues like Molly Rose Brewing in Collingwood, but sometimes ventured further afield, like Blackman’s Brewery in Torquay.
Vandewater insisted runners don’t have to drink alcohol because there are non-alcoholic options.
Long-standing chairman Karl Robson Gunn Runners The club, or “Gunnies”, which meets at the Limerick Arms in South Melbourne on Tuesday nights, said finishing the bar run was “your reward for going out there and doing your five K”.
He said the bar offers free drinks to runners, but people often buy more drinks and food.
Gunn Runners charges each member $5 per run; this funds public liability insurance, IT costs and contributes to charity.
Professor Matthew Klugman, a sports historian at the University of Victoria, said many Australian pubs in the 19th century hosted and sponsored athletes and sports teams, including running and pedestrian (long-distance competitive walking) clubs.
The Melbourne Renegade Pub Football League, which includes 10 Australian rules teams representing pubs such as The Tote in Collingwood, has been in official existence since 2009, but games began on a more relaxed basis in 1993.
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