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“Okay, so the premise is a little off-kilter – teaming up exhausting adventure sports with craft beer. These well-written columns are fast-paced, fun and really will get you off and exploring natural areas, with a cold brew as your reward.”
James Murren is an award-winning independent writer, with numerous pieces having appeared in outdoor sports and recreation media outlets, adventure and travel magazines, newspapers, practitioners’ journals and newsletters, including:
L.A. Times, The Surfer’s Journal, Adventure Sports Journal, Mountain Flyer, Roads & Kingdoms, Backpacker Magazine, Cranked (UK), Snowshoe Magazine, Sub-Saharan Magazine, San Diego Union-Tribune, Spoke Magazine (NZ), Dirt Rag Magazine, Bike Magazine, Bicyclist Magazine, Strung Magazine, Bicycle Times, Switchback, and XXC Mag.
Currently, he is a columnist for Adventure Sports Journal (“Earn Your Beer“). Earn Your Beer is about pushing yourself in the mountains, deserts, oceans, rivers, wherever and then sitting back and enjoying a beer when relaxing at camp or home. Additionally, he is on the editorial team for Snowshoe Magazine.
I’ve a new project for 2021. Check it out here: MTBeer
Several articles and writing samples are available under Portfolio in the menu bar up top, where you can also enter the Blog for current postings.
Murren has published three books. Go Here, Go There: Travel and Workis a collection of words and photos depicting such experiences in ten countries around West Africa, Central and South America, North America, and Eurasia. The other two books are based on his work and travels in Honduras and Ethiopia. You can buy the books online via the link in the sidebar, or at the following locations: The Reader’s Cafe in Hanover, PA and Verbatim Books in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego, CA.
Member: Society of American Travel Writers and North American Travel Journalists Association
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- Earn Your Beer #132: Digital Detox - 02/15/2024
- Earn Your Beer #131: Mendocino Redwoods - 12/14/2023
- Earn Your Beer: Issue #130 - 08/28/2023
Kayaking San Diego’s Mission Bay
By James Murren
The Earning
The setting sun warmed our backsides as a steady tailwind helped us across San Diego’s Mission Bay in the direction of Vacation Isle. The tide was working against us on the open water crossing. My wife and I were in kayaks on a moonlight paddle with a group that set out from the Mission Bay Aquatic Center, which is jointly owned and operated by Associated Students of San Diego State University and UC San Diego Recreation. Looking east, the big ole moon rose over the Anza-Borrego desert and the mountains of Laguna and Cuyamaca. Sitting in our boats in the bay, watching several brown pelicans, I experienced an understanding of home.
We circumnavigated the Isle by going clockwise, rounding it and then working our way back across the bay. Small lights shined from the sterns of the kayaks — tethered beacons for others to see. The breeze calmed and silence fell over the water in the final minutes of day’s light. Suddenly, the sky, that was softly lit up by a nearly full moon, exploded into greens and reds and golds: nearby Sea World was having a fireworks show. Still in the boats, we turned them around to see the display and paddled backwards, oars dipping and boats sliding while we ooooh-ed and aaaah-ed.
The Beer
Best Day Brewing is a new non-alcoholic beer crafter out of northern California. They make a Kolsch, a Hazy IPA, and a West Coast IPA. On the paddle outing, I had the West Coast IPA. Refreshing? Yes. Taste like an IPA? Indeed. Citrusy and all that good stuff? Yep. Hydration? Surely!
The next morning, I got in my regular Saturday morning ride: 25+ miles in the Cuyamacas this time around. Pedaling a mountain bike up and down the desert-to-mountains landscape on a warm spring morning had me hankering for a post-ride beer. The new Rove Beer hit the spot. If there’s a brewery trying to do everything right when it comes to sustainability, Pure Project is easily in the top of any list anywhere. Rove comes in at 4.2% and goes down easy, pretty much perfect for a trailside beer, or at the crag, the river, the mountain top, the beach. As the Pure people say, it’s an adventure beer (American style lager), plain and simple. rove.beer
