Cincinnati Man Once Again Drinks Only Beer, Gives Up Food For Lent

CINCINNATI — A raspberry ale for breakfast, an India pale ale for lunch and a hearty stout for dinner? It might sound like a college diet, but for a Cincinnati man, it's a meal plan.

At least during Lent.

For the fourth straight year, Del Hall, 47, is giving up food for Lent, sticking to a 46-day diet of beer. He told WCPO-TV it's a way for him to return to a "healthy mindset" and look at food in a healthy way.

“I decided I’m going to turn this into a beer diet to show people that you can use beer in a healthy way and not vilify it as this evil alcohol," he said.

As of March 22, or 21 days into the diet, Hall said he lost 20 pounds.

"Not eating ANY food ... is a constant reminder of how much we use eating as entertainment," he wrote in an Instagram post. "The upside is that you gain all the time ... you use to eat, shop, plan, prep, and think about what you were going to eat!"About 31 days into his all-beer binge (though he also drinks water and takes a multivitamin daily) Hall reportedly lost 25 pounds.

His goal, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, is to slim down to 225 pounds by Easter — 100 pounds lighter than where he was three years ago.

As Patch previously reported, this isn't Hall's first rodeo.

The beer influencer, as he calls himself, and co-owner of 16 Lots Brewing Co. has said the annual tradition harkens to the 17th century. Paulaner monks brewed beer specifically for sustenance during liquid-only Lenten fast.

"Just like the monks used to do it back in the 1600s, I'm going to do the same thing," Hall said in a 2019 YouTube video announcing his liquid-only fast. "It's not necessarily about the weight loss as it as the challenge of replicating what the monks did."

Hall, an Army veteran, said leaving the military can result in a habit of overindulging.

"My pendulum doesn't swing toward moderation," Hall previously told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Hall wears a continuous glucose monitor and called it an eye-opener. He described his typical day as hovering under 100 all day until he drinks a beer. As he drinks more beers, it rises, though rarely reaching 160.

"Funny, the beer spike at the end of this day was a 450N Slushee XL," he said.