5th Annual Studer's Invitational Beer Olympics

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

We recently held our fifth annual Studer's Invitational Beer Olympics and it was a huge success.  You can read more of my thoughts on how our Beer Olympics event is a lot more than just a day of drinking in this post.  

This year we had so many participants signed up that we held our biggest event yet - ten teams of four people and we drank our way through five half kegs.  Like in previous years, we start with registration & waiver signing and then a quick game of sloshball (kickball with beer).  
Beer Olympic Planning Tip:  We ask participants to pay a $30 fee which includes a tshirt, cost of beer, and a donation to a charity for that year.  Spectators (non-players/refs) are asked to pay a $20 fee.  After the event we then reimburse for the beer and tshirts and any proceeds left over get donated! 
We got our ten teams together (using all of our favorite team names from the past four years) - including our reigning champion team: The Buccaneers. 

Each year, we learn a little bit more about what works best for the flow of the day and how to keep the games moving along as smoothly as possible.  This year, we decided to install 'quick challenges' following most events as opportunities for teams to earn a couple points to try to catch up if they didn't do well during a main event.

The only problem with this initially ambitious idea, was that our roster of participants included a significant amount of 'Rookies' and the thing about Rookie players is that they believe their 'beer muscles' are pretty big at the beginning of the day.  Our Veteran players stand by and laugh to themselves while they watch the Rookies drinking in between events.  As my husband said to me, "Do you see these Rookies?  They just have no idea how much drinking we have to do today yet.  They're finishing full glasses of beer between games!"  Needless to say, we emptied one whole keg before we even finished our first event.  
Beer Olympic Planning tip:  Generally games will consist of players drinking a beer per game.  Rookies will drink more at the beginning of the day and then slow down.  The more quick challenges you have (chug off, keg stands, etc) also adds to the amount of beer.  Generally for 8 teams of 4 players - three to four half kegs suffice.  It is always a good idea though to have a sober driver or two available to make a keg run during intermission if needed.
Our Olympics has always start the same way:

Main Event: Beer Pong tournament

Our quick challenges were optional events that as many players on a team could try to get a few extra points.  So if all four players on the team successfully completed or won a quick challenge - they'd receive 8+ points (2 pts per player)

Quick Challenge:  7 second Upside-Down, Backwards Keg Stand (2pts)

Main Event:  Dingbat Relay (similar to 'dizzy bat')

Beer Olympics Planning Tip:  It is helpful to have several big pitchers available to keep participants cups filled and to fill cups for events throughout the day.  Pitchers are also the main drinking vessel for one of the main events.  We have 10 pitchers on hand at our Beer Olympics.
[Skipped] Quick Challenge:  Quarters (possible +3)

Beer Olympics Planning Tip:  We had to skip a few events and quick challenges due to time and beer consumption.  Hosting a successful Beer Olympics depends greatly on everyone's ability to be flexible.  With so many teams and participants, our events and challenges were taking a lot more time than we had anticipated.  We needed to drop some of our events in the interest of daylight and also to maintain our beer inventory.
Main Event:  Slippy Cup (flip cup with a slip&slide)

Beer Olympic Planning Tip:  See the guy above holding the hose?  That is one of our spectators/Refs that attend the day.  It is very important to have non-participating people attend the Beer Olympics.  We are lucky to have several - which help keep pitchers and cups full, watch for first teams finished, spray hoses during slippy cup, pump and hold tap systems for keg stands, run stopwatches, and swap out and load full kegs.  It is impossible to be the host and do everything that needs to be done during the day.  The refs & spectators are a huge reason for why our event works.
Quick Challenge:  Chug-offs (+2 points to the winner)

Main Event:  Canoe Races

Main Event:  Anchorman

Beer Olympics Planning Tip:  If you do NOT want people to throw up in your yard...do NOT include neither Canoe Races nor Anchorman in your scheduled events.  We have had players throw up after both events every year we have played them.
Scheduled Intermission

[Skipped] Main Event:  Flip Cup Tournament
[Skipped] Quick Challenge:  Beer Duels

Main Event:  Bong Races  (also the inspiration for our tshirt design this year!  Thank you, American Eagle Screenprinting for the awesome design!!)

[Skipped] Quick Challenge:  Monkey Chug
[Skipped] Main Event:  Survivor Flip Cup
 - this was going to be a new game that I read about from The Canfield Olympics.  We made a few changes to the rules so that it would still be a team game, but used the same general concept - thanks Canfield for sharing!  Read about it here - it sounds both hilarious and amazing.  Wish we could have done it this year, but by this point in the day - we were almost out of daylight and most of our players could barely stand up straight..

Quick Challenge:  Chug-offs (again!  it's a player favorite!)
Main Event:  Booze Cruise Obstacle Course
(no pictures as it was about 9:30p and dark.  Included tire run, trampoline army crawl, rolling down a hill, running up the slip&slide, leap frog, and finish with a beer chugged.)

After a full day of events and copious amounts of beer intake - it should come as no surprise that a dance party broke out, in large part due to Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines on repeat 36 times in a row.

Our unscheduled dance party was followed up with a spirited awards ceremony where we hand out awards to the players based off of observations from the refs all day.  We give away awards for things like "Zophagus" (fastest chugger), "Shark" (doesn't look like a beer drinker but is awesome), "Hit the Deck" (first one to bow out of the competition), and ''Puke 'N Rally" (no need to explain that one).

After our awards ceremony, we then make team place announcements all the way up to our new 2013 Studer's Invitational Beer Olympic Champions:  Team Joker

And since our beloved 'Das Boot' has broken three times in the past years - we have now instated 'The Studer Torpedo' to be given to the champion team for first drinks before passing it around to all the participants while Queen's We Are the Champions plays loudly in the background.

And then we all continue eating and drinking and sitting by the fire long into the night.
Beer Olympics Planning Tip:  Ask players and spectators to bring a dish to share.  We set our garage up with extension cords and coolers and as our friends arrive it gets filled up with crockpots, containers, and roasters filled with awesome food.  Everyone gets more than enough to eat and the cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks is distributed across the whole group - rather than included in the cost of the day which helps contribute to a greater donation.
Beer Olympics Planning Tip:  Expect and/or demand family and friends to either sleep over (tents and air mattresses happily accepted) or be picked up by a sober driver.  There is little to no participants capable of driving home after the day.  Keeping everyone alive and safe should be main priority.  Always.
It was another year of fun and games this year.  Best of all - through our participation fee we were able to raise $506 dollars for Miss Tay  - a little girl from our community that has hydrocephalus.  You can help support her too by checking out her Go Fund Me Page - she is preparing to receive her final cord blood infusion in the next few weeks!

Thank you to all of our amazing friends and family that participate, help set up & clean up, play with positive attitudes and make this event possible.  We are so lucky.

Beer Olympic Planning Tip:  The biggest reason that we have been able to hold our Beer Olympics for five years in a row is in large part due to the people that attend.  That is why we have kept it an invitational event.  It also is because our invitees understand that although we spend the day playing drinking games, it is ultimately for a greater cause (the donation recipient).  The point of the day is not to get sloppy, puking drunk as fast as possible (although that does happen) - it is to spend the day with good friends, making memories, and raising money for a worthy cause.  


  1. Do you have an official Invitation?

  2. How did you distribute points for anchorman?