Beer and university go together. They just do. Who hasn’t stayed up late, pint in hand, cramming for a physics final or a history essay? And just try and tell me you’ve never shotgunned a can or two to celebrate afterward.
There’s a reason that college kids drink a lot — beer helps when it comes to making social connections, de-stressing, and having fun with your classmates. Some of the best friendships I’ve made at SFU have been struck over a couple of brews, and I’m sure plenty more will be in the future.
It’s not just the social side of university, either. Beer has been proven to help with your schoolwork; it lowers your focus, sure, but it also increases your capacity for creative thought and innovation, giving you the bright ideas that eventually turn into presentations and research papers.
And though I’ll be the first one to admit beer has its fair share of adverse health effects, there are plenty of positives to balance it out: it’s proven to be heart healthy in moderate doses, helps to lower your cholesterol, and can even stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s. In women, it might even lead to better overall cognitive function, according to the 2006 American Heart Association report.
So why doesn’t SFU have more beer on its Burnaby Mountain campus?
As the poet John Ciardi once wrote, “Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.”
Sure, we’ve got a bar. The Highland Pub, which has been around almost as long as The Peak, is actually a pretty decent watering hole. Hell, they’ve even got Driftwood’s Fat Tug on tap, one of the best craft beers in BC.
But let’s be honest: the food is subpar, the prices are nothing to write home about, and it’s been hemorrhaging student funds for years. It’s no Central City or Steamworks. Compared to its sister campuses in Surrey and Vancouver — both of which are surrounded by a wealth of great pubs and liquor stores — Burnaby just doesn’t cut it in the beer department.
Investing in more beer on campus isn’t just a good thing for students who are looking to take the edge off after a hard day of classes — it’s also an important step towards building the supportive student community that SFU sorely lacks. As the poet John Ciardi once wrote, “Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.”
More pubs and beer mean more get togethers, which means SFU students getting to know each other and striking up friendships. There’s nothing like a rowdy pub night to unite a group, and we all know that SFU is a few fries short of a Happy Meal when it comes to student solidarity.
SFU is a great school, but it’s got a reputation as a “commuter campus.” This is just a nice way to say that, once people’s classes are over, they just go home. Beer gives people a reason to stick around, and it helps foster an environment where people feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. In a way that simply going to the same school never can, beer has the capacity to bring us together.
Okay, okay, I know I’m still talking about beer here. I don’t want to go overboard — for some, beer will never mean the same thing that it does to me. But I do think one of the first and most important steps towards turning SFU Burnaby into a more welcoming place for students, both new and old, is a little wheat, barley, and hops.
Now, who wants to split a pitcher?
