In 2023, Scarborough Harbour Brewing owner Guy Schweitzer ran across Australia, from Port Hedland in Western Australia to the brewery in Scarborough.
It took him 78 days (with a few days off due to weather etc). Around half of it was on dirt tracks and dirt roads, and he pulled a cart with his bedding and other essentials the entire way. Each running day, he covered an average of 64km. That’s one and a half marathons each day. As someone who’s run a half marathon and found it slightly too exhausting and painful for my liking,* thank you very much, I am nothing short of amazed by this.
Back home, the brew team had cooked up a beer to celebrate, and on the day Guy arrived at the brewery, SHBC released a New England IPA called Home Run.
If you’re expecting the beer he drank at the end of a 4900km run to be "light and refreshing," think again. Home Run is thick and pulpy juice, loaded up with Mosaic, Strata, Eclipse, Nectaron and El Dorado hops to give as much citrus and tropical fruits as you could squeeze into a beer. There’s also a heady interplay between stone fruit and dankness, which suits the full texture that the wheat and oats bring to the mouthfeel, and it all wraps up with a soft edging of bitterness at the end.
Home Run has since been re-brewed a few times, since it’s a favourite beer of many SHBC fans - including Guy himself. But never forget that it was born out of a stupidly long run.
Mick Wüst
*Fun fact: even through he ran the length of the country, Guy didn’t get any blisters. Madness.
Published July 1, 2023 2023-07-01 00:00:00
