Mikkel Borg Bjergso, co-founder of the Danish microbrewery Mikkeller, is a man who likes a challenge. At the opening of the new Mikkeller bar in Shibuya, Bjergso tells me that his next goal is to finish the Berlin Marathon next September in two hours and 45 minutes.

¡°Let¡¯s bet on it,¡± he says, sticking out his hand for me to shake.

I¡¯m not the gambling type, but Bjergso is persuasive and tenacious. I know he went to university in the United States on a track and field scholarship, he has also launched a worldwide program called the Mikkeller Running Club and makes a pilsner by the same name. Despite this, my mind began assessing the odds.