Beer yoga is ayoga hybrid, created in America around 2013, in which participants practiceyoga atbreweries ortaprooms, drinkingbeer during or afterasana practice. It has since spread to other countries. The practice has been criticised as unhealthy and out of keeping with the spirit ofclassical yoga, but alcohol was sometimes used in yoga rituals in classical times.^[1][2]

Beer yoga is ayoga hybrid in which participants practiceyoga atbreweries ortaprooms, drinkingbeer during or afterasana practice.^[3]The exact origins of beer yoga are not clear, but it is said to have appeared at theBurning Man festival in the Nevada desert around 2013.^[4] Brooke Larson founded the American company Beer Yoga inOklahoma City in July 2015; she states that "I took a silly picture of myself sipping beer and doing yoga in February of 2013";^[4] the response encouraged her to create the Beer YogaInstagram page. By 2017 she was teaching Beer Yoga classes in eight states.^[4]

The GermanBierYoga company was started by a man named Jhula inBerlin in 2015, after seeing beer yoga at the Burning Man festival; it has spread to countries such asAustralia andThailand.^[5][6] By 2017, beer yoga was described as "nearly as universal atcraft breweries asIPAs" in America.^[7]In England, a London pub started to offerVinyasa Yoga classes with "ice cold beer" in 2017.^[8]

Some fitness experts have criticized beer yoga as a marketing gimmick, calling it unhealthy.^[9]The Guardian commented that a beer afterwards was surely preferable to a "mid-plank pilsner".^[10] Thebehavioral 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.^[11]The Times notes that "sipping an ice cold pint while inwarrior pose" is far from the classical teachings of theYoga Sutras of Patanjali.^[12] However, theIndologistJames Mallinson comments that yoga is "such a big multifarious tradition you can find precedence for almost anything", adding that in the 6th centuryalcohol was used in rituals to help advanced yogis to be "possessed" by the goddess.^[1][2]

• Yoga styles
• Beer culture
• Yoga hybrids