Songfacts®:

• One of Todd Snider's most popular songs, this one tells the story of some stoners who go to a Robert Earl Keen concert and decide to make a beer run. After finding a hippie dude to buy it for them, they make it back to the show in time to see Keen play "The Road Goes on Forever."
  
  Snider wrote the song during Robert Earl Keen's set at the Fat Fry festival in Santa Cruz, California, which is staged by the radio station KPIG. Snider was also on the bill, and found himself in a creative space, having just started smoking pot again. Since the song specifically mentions Keen, Snider played it for him to make sure he was cool with it, which he was.
  
  "I sing it as a love song to Santa Cruz and KPIG and Robert, not as a song about beer," Snider said in his book I Never Met A Story I Didn't Like.
• The idea to spell out the words "Beer Run" came from a musician named Keith Christopher, who said he needed to go on a "B double E double R-U-N." Snider asked if he could use that for a song, and Christopher consented.