Chris Schryer drinks only doppelbock during the Lent period

Apr 9, 2014 09:27 GMT  ·  By

A 33-year-old Toronto man has decided to shun all solid food and has vowed to drink only beer for the 40 days of Lent.

Web designer Chris Schryer has been living on a beer diet since March 5 and says the experiment is really challenging – a real test of “spiritual discipline” – especially when meal time comes.

“Without being dramatic, it definitely is not fun. I look pretty healthy now, but by the end of the 40 days my wife figures I’ll look like a castaway on account of my bushy beard,” he said, according to Oddity Central.

Although he keeps cooking real food for his wife and two children, Chris resists temptation and only drinks his brew. He is having a bottle of strong beer for breakfast, another beer for lunch and a large 650 ml bottle of beer for dinner.

To avoid dehydration, Chris also drinks water, watered down juice and heavily sugared tea and coffee. In addition, his health is constantly being monitored by a doctor.

The man's stock for the entire 40-day period comes from a 100-litre batch of doppelbock prepared especially for him at Toronto’s Amsterdam Brewing Co. He chose the strong lager of German origin for his fast because this beverage is considered one of the world’s heaviest beers and contains just enough nutrients to stave off starvation. The dark beer is reportedly supplying him with 2,000 calories per day.

Schryer, who is a devout Anglican, even got Reverend Lucy Reid at Toronto’s Church of St. Aidan to bless the 100 litres of German beer that will keep him alive until Easter.

However, despite its high nutritional value, doppelbock is light on protein and devoid of fat, so the all-beer diet could prove dangerous for any person's health if sustained for long periods of time.

Beer has always been an important part of Schryer’s life. He transformed his hobby of drinking beer in a side job by creating a website, TorontoBeerBlog.com, where he sometimes reviews different types of brews. Now, he is documenting his Lenten beer fast on his blog.

“I’ve not only survived so far, but thrived. I played all three of my last hockey games of the season (guzzling Gatorade during the last one to keep my energy up). In a way, my 'success' so far has seriously juxtaposed all the other areas in my life where I don’t have good self control,” he wrote in a recent update.

As it turns out, Chris is not the first person to live on a beer-only diet during the Lent. Apparently, this tradition goes back centuries, and it was first practiced by Bavarian monks in the early 1600s.