DRAFT Magazine

In high school, our wrestlers constantly talked about making weight before a match.

This often entailed running the halls and/or jumping rope in full sweatsuits and stocking caps, as well as frequent spitting.

Much more pleasant than making weight is Makeweight, an absolutely superb beer from Wisconsin brewery Furthermore. It’s easily in my Top 3 beers for 2009 thus far.

As former featured Beer Runner Kevin Revolinski describes it in terms a runner could understand:

“Furthermore Beer is a relatively young company out of Spring Green but with their creative twists on brews they have really hit the ground running. Their latest concoction will help you too hit the ground, though probably not running.

Amen. At a healthy 8.5% ABV, this is a major reward for a long run. It’s also a rare combo of body, flavor and smoothness. How did they do it? According to the source:

Our triple pale is a bastardization of three regionally distinctive recipes that were stacked in unequal measure in order to make a beefy beer which highlights each recipe’s finer points: Esters from a dominant Flanders yeast are reigned-in by cleaner American and London strains; Kent Golding hops provide mild bitterness, giving English and Belgian specialty malts room to breath; Oregonian hops offer a fragrant nose; Belgian candy sugar boosts the strength of this mash-up to 8.5% ABV.

And if you’re looking to make weight the old fashioned way, the Mad City 100K near Furthermore’s home of Spring Green is coming up quick.