Short answer YES! Long and interesting answer… here are the beer-tiful benefits of NORT non-alcoholic beer as a recovery option this running season.

We all know it is important to hydrate, refuel and enjoy the moment after you sprint, fly, hobble or fall over that line in a few weeks at the Gold Coast Marathon. Here is why NORT ticks all those boxes.

Hydrate: We will be handing you a complimentary 375ml can of refreshing, flavourful, cold beer without the booze which will automatically replace fluids lost through sweating. It contains only water, malt, yeast and hops which are pure, completely natural products without any of the nasties that can be found in more mainstream sport drinks. Studies show that athletes are more likely to match their sweat losses when offered flavoured drinks compared to water… now add beer into that equation and it’s even more appealing!

Recovery: NORT is a Hypotonic when it comes to sports drinks categories. This means it has less than 6% per cent carbohydrates (NORT has 5.3g carbs per serving) with its main focus being on hydration with lower kilojoules so is useful for those who need to use a sports drink but need or want to be mindful of their energy intake. Energy drinks are helpful during exercise, because they restore glycogen in the body, the sugar-based compound that we use to store energy. However after training, we don’t need to worry about getting these immediate carbs when we hydrate. When you drink sports drinks after exercise, you’re just packing your body with extra sugar and sodium it doesn’t need. A NORT non alcoholic beer, on the other hand, does what your body really needs: hydrates, restores minerals and supports the recovery process.

Enjoy: “mouth sensing” of a liquid containing carbohydrate stimulates reward centres in the brain to make you, the athlete, feel better and can directly enhance performance. It should also be noted that NORT’s high concentration of polyphenols (derived from the hops and malt) is the most oft-cited health benefit to the beverage. Polyphenols are micronutrients that naturally occur in plants. They have unique molecular structures and have been credited with many health-promoting properties. These benefits in relation to athletic performance include supporting the immune system and reducing inflammation.

And to prove our point our European friends, which is the home of non-alcoholic beer, have been increasingly engaging with non-alcoholic beer in the last 5 years with Erdinger (Germany’s largest family owned brewery) handing out over 30,000 bottles at the end of the 2017 Berlin Marathon and in 2018 Krombacher (the second highest selling beer in Germany) supplied the athletes’ village at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games with 3500 litres of their non-alcoholic beer. German triathlon coach, Mario Schmidt-Wendling at SISU training, commented below on what he believes is part of the appeal of non-alcoholic beer (lack of sweetness!).

“It’s very popular here… After having several hours of sweet and sugar in a race, something harsh is often preferred by athletes afterwards. I think that plays a big part in its appeal.”

And then there is hard cold evidence which was led by Johannes Scherr and David Nieman who named their work “Be-MaGIC” – Beer, Marathons, Genetics, Inflammation and the Cardiovascular system.

Their study involved 277 marathon runners who were each instructed to drink up to 1.5 litres of either non-alcoholic Erdinger beer or a specially formulated indistinguishable placebo (that contained no polyphenols) a day for three weeks prior to the 2009 Munich Marathon and for two weeks after. The study found that when athletes consistently drank non-alcoholic beer, markers of inflammation like white blood cell activity were down by 20% and there was a lower frequency of infection (along with milder symptoms).

Non-alcoholic beer was shown to limit athletes’ risk of illness – which is often cited as one of the more common reasons for inconsistency in training.

So there you have it. Why drink anything else when you can drink BEER!

NORT is proud to be the official beer of Gold Coast Marathon 2022. We look forward to seeing you conquer that finishing line and handing over a fresh, cold, refreshing NORT and let the recovery and enjoyment begin!

Written by NORT Founder, Jaz Wearin

Extracts taken from
Australian Institute of Sport
https://www.precisionhydration.com/