SAN FRANCISCO -- It was a raucous Friday night cocktail party with sweeping, stunning views of the San Francisco Bay and the Presidio as the backdrop.

Except the nectars of choice were not cocktails, but rather Pt. Bonita Pilsner and Hill 88 Double IPA from the Headlands Brewing Company. The participants, visiting the stately home of Canadian beer mile pioneer John Markell, were an unprecedented gathering of the world’s greatest beer milers.

Unlike, say, Olympians on the eve of the biggest race of their lives, these athletes were more than happy to knock back a few beers and talk about Saturday’s looming Beer Mile World Classic, where each will chug a beer and run a quarter mile, then repeat three more times. Strictly in the spirit of journalism, this intrepid reporter can tell you that, as with any proper party, it got louder and louder as it progressed.

It’s quite possible they might like the act of drinking beer as much as the art of running.

On Treasure Island, halfway between downtown San Francisco and Oakland, the races will start around 2:30 p.m. PT. After several hours of sub-heats featuring local amateurs who signed up online, the women’s race will follow and, finally, around 5:30 p.m., the elite men’s race, featuring the only three men to have run an officially recognized sub-5-minute beer mile.

If you’ve been following along at home (and we hope you have), you know the narrative:

Back in April 2014, Northern Californian James “The Beast” Nielsen breaks the world record with a 4:57.0 on a Marin County track. The record stands until Aug. 7, when Australian Josh Harris runs a 4:56.2. Fourteen hours later, Canadian Lewis Kent breaks it again with a 4:55.7.

Now, will we see a third world record in a span of 15 days?

The consensus is yes.

During a video shoot, Nielsen was posing with Harris and Kent when the cameraman asked Nielsen to step up on a few cases of Budweiser. He looked like he was standing at the top of a medal podium.

“Is this foreshadowing?” Nielsen asked playfully.

Said Kent, “Give him his glory now.”

Actually, Nielsen is the underdog here.

The new team competition is lending an even more festive atmosphere to the latest beer mile gathering. Greg Garber

Sportsbet of Australia has established odds on a variety of bets, including, oddly enough, whether someone will vomit in the elite men’s race. As of late Friday, the leading favorites, by a wide margin, were Harris (2.00), followed by Kent (2.25) and Nielsen (3.0). Next in line were Michael Cunningham and Brian Anderson, at 16.00.

Patrick Butler, proprietor of Beermile.com, has a beer mile fantasy game going and the early returns, he reported Friday night, have a four-way tie between the usual suspects -- Nielsen, Harris and Kent -- and a surprise, Canadian Jim Finlayson, whose personal best is a 5:09. The Beermile.com faithful are predicting a median time of 4:58, which would not be a world record.

Butler is picking Nielsen to win, with a time of 4:55.1, which would be an all-time best. What would it mean to the sport to produce another world record with the world watching?

“The first step toward world domination,” Butler said. “At the very least, it will be socially acceptable to share your beer mile time on your résumé.”

The unanswered question going in is how those runners, who have typically run world record attempts on an empty track (like Nielsen and Harris) will fare with 13 sets of elbows and 52 bottles of suds flying around them in the chaos of an actual race.

“The mess is what makes it interesting. I think Nielsen will do better with the crowd,” Butler said. “And I’ll say this, too: Everyone’s sleeping on [American] Michael Cunningham. He was leading the Austin, Texas, race last December until Corey Gallagher passed him on the last lap. He ran a 5:07.9.”

On the women’s side, American world-record holder Beth Herndon is missing in action. The favorite, according to Sportbet, is 45-year-old Chris Kimbrough. Yes, this 5-foot-3, 108-pound sprite is the prohibitive favorite, ahead of Caitlin Judd and former world-record holder Seanna Robinson.

“I’m the favorite?” Kimbrough asked Friday, sounding surprised. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Kimbrough was the world-record holder with a 6:28.6 mark, but lost it in Austin to Herndon, who was clocked in 6:17.8.

“She pretty much did [smash it],” said Kimbrough, who would not predict another record. “It all depends on how the beer goes down.”

In a lively racers’ meeting, it was decided that four ounces will be the cutoff for acceptable dregs for the total of four discarded 12-ounce bottles each racer produces. Any more left behind will result in disqualification.

Beer milers in general are fairly modest folks and Friday night there was little trash-talking about the individual race. Rather, there were some spirited discussions regarding the team race that pits the United States against Canada and Australia. The top three finishers from each country will be tallied to determine a global winner.

All three sub-five guys sounded confident, but Nielsen went out of his way to throw down the gauntlet.

“My plan is to win the race,” he said, emphatically. “I think it will take a world record to win his thing.”