Once that big glowing orb rolls back into the sky and grey finally shifts to blue, beer gardens transform from vacant patches of sparse grass and cigarette butts into runways for people to show off every pair of shoes they’ve bought during winter hibernation. Running trainers that were never actually bought for running, suede adidas picked up in a January sale and kept boxed ever since, boat shoes your mates are definitely going to take the piss out of you for, but it’s now far too late to return them. Beer gardens are basically the Met Gala for footwear.
Naturally, we’ve got our own opinions on what makes good beer garden footwear. Bright and light colourways, comfort at an absolute premium, and ideally something capable of surviving a few grass stains and the occasional splash of lager. Looking good matters, but so does being able to stand upright after four pints and mild sunstroke.
So, we’ve teamed up with SEVENSTORE to present ten of our favourite pairs of beer garden footwear, alongside the type of person – and more importantly, the type of drink – that usually accompanies them.
Anyone wearing ZX8000 to the beer garden isn’t arsed about what they’re drinking – only how much they’re drinking. Tennents, Carling, Fosters, Boddingtons – whatever’s cheap and nasty will be getting launched down the hatch at alarming speed. Half of it won’t even make the journey, either; the rest will be splashing straight back onto these poor ZX8000s.
Asahi. Obviously. Maybe Sapporo if they’re in an establishment fancy enough to serve it.
The New Balance Allerdale absolutely stinks of someone who only drinks Guinness and looks down their nose at anyone doing otherwise. Make sure you’re wary of bringing over anything with more than 3cm of head, otherwise you might find that plush brown toebox lodged somewhere in your rectum.
Anyone wearing this specific colourway of Nike Waffle Racer isn’t interested in anything that comes out of a tap. They’re after top shelf. Some kind of cocktail made with Jamaican rum. Three sips in and they’re reeling off passages from Shoe Dog like they helped Nike get off the ground in the ‘70s.
One word to sum up this 991 colourway is steady. And that’s the defining characteristic of anyone wearing these in the beer garden. They’ll happily drink most things you put in front of them, and don’t mind chipping in too. Always there when it’s time to pick up a round, pockets lined with quids for the jukebox & pool table, and will gladly wrestle you into a cab when you’ve had one too many.
People in Wallabees are always good to have around, but they’re going to be on extremely high alert in a beer garden. Risks of grass stains on that lovely beige suede are at an all-time high, and don’t even think about going near them with a pint of lager. Still, if they were that worried about ruining them, they should’ve bought the GORE-TEX version.
The 990v4 is a footwear icon – but anyone wearing these to the beer garden isn’t ordering anything besides a pint of Moretti and a packet of ready salted crisps. One setting on the smartwatch will be tracking their blood alcohol levels, and the other will be linked to BBC Snooker updates. Three pints maximum, home before 10, and absolutely no danger of anything interesting happening all afternoon.
Birkenstocks in the beer garden is a dead giveaway that someone’s been travelling recently. Backpacking through South America? Inter-railing across Europe? Hiking through Africa? There’s no point even trying to guess, because after two pints of the most ‘exotic’ thing they’ve got on tap, they’re going to tell you every last detail anyway.
Once upon a time, a person turning up to the beer garden in Timberland Boat Shoes would’ve drunk Guinness. But now that’s too mainstream, so they’ve since moved on to Murphy’s. Next week it’ll probably be Beamish. And in the not so distant future they’ll be back to Guinness. Tryhards.
Hooch. Anyone wearing a pair of 95s in a colourway as nineties as this would be bang into Hooch. Probably ordering those four can buckets you get on a deal for £25 at most Greene King establishments. And when they’ve done all four, they’ll be standing on top of a bench with their shirt off.
