A foodie gives up solid food for Lent and only drinks beer

[struggle4progress]

7:37 am, March 24th, 2014

Sitting in front of me is a beer unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. It’s a Dopplebock in theory, but it was brewed with a huge number of oats. As a result, it is viscous. The chestnut brown meniscus of the liquid wobbles independently when you jostle the table. When you pour it, it laps at the side of the glass. I have had milkshakes thinner than this. It drinks like a meal.

For my friend Chris Schryer, that’s a very good thing. For the last 19 days, this beer has been his breakfast, lunch and dinner. Chris has given up solid food for Lent in emulation of the monastic order who created Dopplebock in Bavaria in the 17th century ...

On day seven, he wasn’t tired of the beer that had been brewed for his attempt. “Tired will be when it’s a chore. I’m drinking other stuff, which helps. I’m on clear liquids, which means no dairy.” That precludes most smoothies and condensed fruit juices. The oats in the beer are meant to provide additional nutrition through their proteins and unfermentable sugars. “We thought about using seaweed.” You can hear in his voice that he’s glad they didn’t.

Getting through the day requires a careful balancing act. In order to remain productive during his fast, Chris is having a 341ml bottle of beer at breakfast, another at lunch and a 650ml bottle at dinner. In order to regulate his blood sugar between meals, he is drinking apple juice and lightly sugared tea. At no point in the process is he ever inebriated, and he drinks several litres of water a day to remain hydrated ...

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2014/03/20140324-073752.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Ash Wednesday

By chris | Published: March 5, 2014

And so starts the fast. It’s Ash Wednesday, the day in the Christian year that marks the start of Lent, the 40 days of preparation for Easter. I announced a while ago, that I was planning on fasting from food for Lent, and will be getting sustenance from a beer I made at Amsterdam, as well as clear liquids. It’s kind of crazy, I know.

Yes, part of this is to be able to write about the experience, for the sake of this blog and likely in some other places too. But it also a practice of spiritual discipline. While Christianity (and particularly Anglicanism, the flavour of church I worship in) doesn’t require full fasts like this, some form of fasting (be it giving up TV, packing your lunch instead of buying, etc) is encouraged for Lent. The idea is that by intentionally choosing to “inconvenience” yourself, you can focus your energy on spiritual growth, whether that’s through prayer, reading the Bible, doing good works, etc. So, for example, you could brown-bag your lunch, and donate the money you save to a local soup kitchen.

Already today, I’m finding food to be this enormous mental drain. By 11am (read, I’d only missed one meal) I was already obsessing about food. Mind you, I’m staring down the barrel of 40 days without it, but still, I was shocked at how quickly my mind went there. So in my case, I’m trying to “train” myself to reflect the energy I would spend thinking about the awesomeness of food, to reflective prayer on things in my life that are blessings. Trying to reshape my desire into thankfulness.

After a breakfast of beer (just one), I attended the 10:30 mass at my church, to take communion, and to be marked with the ashes ...

http://www.torontobeerblog.com/lent-2014/ash-wednesday/#more-3875