Loyal reader and bear enthusiast John King pointed me to a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the sport of Masskrugstemmen. What the hell is Masskrugstemmen you ask? Don’t feel bad, I had no idea either.

Masskrugstemmen is played by holding a liter of beer in a large glass mug with your arm extended out in front of you. The whole thing weighs about five pounds. The contestants line up, their glasses are raised, and the last person with their arm outstretched and all the beer in their glass is the winner.

You might guess that this sport was developed in a place with nothing good on television, and you’d be right. The game hails from Germany, where it is played at festivals and in beer halls and, knowing the Germans, in grade schools as well.

It’s caught on here in America in the past few years, with regional and national competitions being held around the country. Annoyingly, I’ve discovered that many of these competitions play the game with water instead of beer, which is ALMOST as bad as playing beer pong without beer (which makes it water pong).

The Third Annual National Championship will be held tomorrow in New York’s Central Park during the German-American Friendship Party, following the 54th German-American Steuben Parade. The Championship will pit regional winners from around the country who will compete to win a trip to Germany. I fully expect a flood of Brooklyn hipsters to try to crash the competition, eager to hoist a liter of PBR in anger, unless of course it conflicts with the National Kickball Championship or the New York Fixed Gear Bicycle Show.

You gotta have your priorities.

.

.