Morning workout at The Warsaw Beer Festival

Beer yoga is a yoga hybrid, created in America around 2013, in which participants practice

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

breweries A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of bee ...

taproom Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

s, drinking

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

during or after

asana An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga ...

practice. It has since spread to other countries. The practice has been criticised as unhealthy and out of keeping with the spirit of

classical yoga The ''Yoga Sutras of Patañjali'' is a collection of Sanskrit sutras (aphorisms) on the theory and practice of yoga – 195 sutras (according to Vyāsa and Krishnamacharya) and 196 sutras (according to others, including BKS Iyengar). The ''Y ...

, but alcohol was sometimes used in yoga rituals in classical times.

Origins

Beer yoga is a yoga hybrid in which participants practice

s, drinking

during or after

practice. The exact origins of beer yoga are not clear, but it is said to have appeared at the

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

festival in the Nevada desert around 2013. Brooke Larson founded the American company Beer Yoga in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

in July 2015; she states that "I took a silly picture of myself sipping beer and doing yoga in February of 2013"; the response encouraged her to create the Beer Yoga

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

page. By 2017 she was teaching Beer Yoga classes in eight states. The German ''BierYoga'' company was started by a man named Jhula in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in 2015, after seeing beer yoga at the Burning Man festival; it has spread to countries such as

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. By 2017, beer yoga was described as "nearly as universal at

craft breweries A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...

as IPAs" in America. In England, a London pub started to offer Vinyasa Yoga classes with "ice cold beer" in 2017.

Reception

Some fitness experts have criticized beer yoga as a marketing gimmick, calling it unhealthy. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' commented that a beer afterwards was surely preferable to a "mid-

plank Plank may refer to: *Plank (wood), flat, elongated, and rectangular timber with parallel faces *Plank (exercise), an isometric exercise for the abdominal muscles * Martins Creek (Kentucky), the location of Plank post office * ''The Plank'' (1967 fi ...

pilsner". The behavioral neuroscientist J. Leigh Leasure states she is unsurprised by the trend, noting that people who have one alcoholic drink a day are twice as likely to exercise as non-drinkers; she doubted whether participants who only had one drink would be harming themselves. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' notes that "sipping an ice cold pint while in warrior pose" is far from the classical teachings of the ''Yoga Sutras'' of Patanjali. However, the

Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is o ...

James Mallinson James Mallinson (1943 – 24 August 2018) was a British record producer. He was the first winner of the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical category, and won a total of 16 Grammy Awards in his career. He won his first three Grammy aw ...

comments that yoga is "such a big multifarious tradition you can find precedence for almost anything", adding that in the 6th century alcohol was used in rituals to help advanced yogis to be "possessed" by the goddess.

References

{{Yoga as exercise Yoga styles Beer culture Yoga hybrids