AND HOW TO TRAIN FOR THEM
Beer Olympic games are loads of fun! Get a team together, choose a raunchy team name, and compete in some serious drinking challenges at your own Beer Olympics. Sounds fun right? Beer Olympics are a team vs. team event competing in beer drinking challenges that are not for the faint of heart. If you are hosting your first Beer Olympics, you will want some tips on how to host the best party of the year and what events to choose.
A Beer Olympics party needs to be competitive for either an entire team or a designated team member. There needs to be a clear winner of the game, and the games shouldn’t be driven by luck. Here are some of our top choices for games in your next Beer Olympics!
CIVIL WAR BEER PONG
The ultimate fast-paced competitive version of everyone’s favorite drinking game, Beer Pong! Civil War Beer Pong is set up similarly to the standard Beer Pong game, but with 2 teams of three facing off.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 12 beers (2 per triangle)
- 36 red solo cups
- 4 ping pong balls
- 2-3 long tables
HOW TO PLAY
Press two or three long tables together and set up three, six-cup triangles side by side on each end of the connected tables. Place the 4 ping pong balls in the middle of the table, and on the count of 3, start the game. There are no turns in Civil War Beer Pong. Each team member is able to shoot a ball as soon as they retrieve a ball. So, the game can easily get chaotic.
If a ball lands in one of your cups, you must drink before you can shoot. Once a team member’s cups are all depleted, they are out, and the other team members continue playing. The game ends when one team still has cups and the other team has none.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
Practice makes perfect when it comes to beer pong. Luckily for this game, you don’t have to get drunk to practice! Get your team together and practice with water in the cups. You will want to work on rebounds, drinking speed, and shooting accuracy.
SLAP CUP
This game can get quite intense… and messy. But if you are preparing for a Beer Olympics, you should know that messiness comes with the show. Slap cup is a competitive drinking game that is played individually.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 2 ping pong balls
- 2 empty red cups
- Enough red cups to fill up at least half of the table
- Enough beer to fill each cup up ⅓ of the way
- Someone to keep score
HOW TO PLAY
Fill half of the table with red cups and fill the cups up ⅓ of the way with beer. All players should stand around the table, and two players start with an empty cup each in front of them. These two players try to bounce the ping pong ball into their empty cup. If a player manages to make it in on the first try, they can pass the cup to any player. If they make it in after the first try, the cup moves to the person to the left.
If two players are right next to each other and the player to the right makes the ball in first, they slap the other player’s cup out of the way. The player to the left must then grab a cup from the middle and drink the contents before trying to make the ball in again. A point is given to a player for every cup that they slap, the player who slaps the most cups wins.
A fun extra optional scoring technique is to deduct a point from the player that gets their cup slapped the most.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
This game can definitely get hectic, so it is a good idea to prepare for it. The only difficult part of this game is making the ping pong ball land in the cup. So to practice for this game, practice your ping pong bouncing skills. Try to master the art of getting your ping pong ball in your cup almost every single time.
STRAWPEDO RELAY CHALLENGE
This is a competitive team challenge that is essentially a chugging relay race. Teams of three face off and strawpedo their beer bottles as fast as possible.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 3 bendy straws per team
- 3 glass beer bottles per team
- Referee to keep time
HOW TO PLAY
Choose which order your team will race in. Then place your straws in the glass beer bottle and bend them slightly down so that air still flows through the straw into the bottle. On the referee’s count, the first racer on each team will start drinking, the second racer cannot start drinking until the first teammate has finished their bottle. The first team to finish all three beers wins.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
Strawpedoing a beer is much easier than it may seem, but it still takes practice. Bend the straw so that the air can still flow and place your mouth over the opening of the bottle and the bend of the straw. As soon as it is time to drink, turn the beer completely upside down with your mouth under the opening and prepare for the liquid to shoot down your throat. The more you practice this, the better you will get!
FLIP CUP
Flip cup is another classic frat-party, team drinking game that the entire team can compete in. Although only one team can compete at a time, you can easily organize a bracket to determine the winners.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 red solo cup per player
- 1 beer per player
HOW TO PLAY
Line up each player in a team on one side of the table and the other team on the other side. It is important that there is an equal number of team members on each team. Each player should fill their solo cup with a beer.
Starting at one end of the table, a member from each team will drink their entire beer as fast as they can and then flip the cup by flicking the bottom of it and making it land upside down. Once the first team member has successfully completed this, the next team member in line can start, and so on until you reach the end of the table. The first team to complete the challenge wins.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
This game is all about speed. You want to be able to chug your beer as fast as possible and then flip your cup so that the next member of your team can start. To practice drinking fast, do casual beer-chugging races with some friends or use another carbonated beverage if you don’t want to get too drunk. To train for this game, you should also practice your cup flipping skills.
BEERIO KART
Everyone loves playing Mario Kart and everyone loves drinking, so why not combine the two? This game can also be called Drinking and Driving. It is a super fun way to play a favorite childhood game in a very “adult” way.
WHAT YOU NEED
- A Nintendo device with a MarioKart game installed (preferably Wii, but any works)
- 4 controllers
- 1 can of beer for each player
HOW TO PLAY
The main rule of Beerio Kart is that you have to finish your beer before crossing the finish line, otherwise you are disqualified. Your strategy is up to you and your team, but there are plenty of options. You can either chug your entire drink before you start driving and then race as normal (albeit slightly inebriated). You can race as normal and drink your beer slowly throughout the race, or you can race all the way to the finish line and finish your entire drink right before crossing.
All is fair as long as your beer is empty when you finish the race. The winner is whoever finishes the race first without getting disqualified.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
This is one of the more strategic Beer Olympics games. Not only do you need to be a decent Mario Kart racer, but you also need to be able to strategize on how to finish your beer before finishing the race. Those with a Mario Kart game to practice at home will definitely have a leg up in this round.
BOAT RACE
Boat Race is a simple enough Beer Olympics game. Even the drunkest participants should easily understand it. It is essentially a beer-chugging competition, with a few twists.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 plastic cup per person
- 1 full beer per person
- Referee to mediate
HOW TO PLAY
This game is played similarly to flip cup, but with no flipping, only drinking. Each team lines up on opposite sides of a table. On the count of three, one team member from each side starts drinking their drink without spilling. Once the drink is finished, the team member must place the drink upside down on their head, again without spilling. Each team member in line must complete this task. Whichever team finishes first wins.
There is a 5-second penalty for a team member who spills any beer while chugging. The cups must be balanced on each team member’s head after they finish the beer. If a cup falls off someone’s head, it must be placed back on before the team can continue the challenge.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
Practice drinking fast and balancing the cup on your head to perfect this challenge. This game is especially fun towards the end of the event when everyone is starting to get quite drunk, so balancing the cup on your head can surprisingly be the hardest part.
CASE RACE
Yet another beloved drink racing game. Who doesn’t love it? This game is a great way to start off the Beer Olympics, probably not a great idea to try Case Race when the teams are already a bit hammered. It is super easy to set up this game as you barely need any supplies.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 case of beer per team (24 pack)
HOW TO PLAY
The rules to case race are simple. Get your team together and finish an entire 24-pack of beer before the other teams. A fun spin to the rule is to have each team member finish the same number of beers. For example, if there are 4 team members, they need to drink 6 beers each.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
The only real way to train for case race is to practice drinking fast. The objective is to finish an entire case between 3-5 people before another team. So, you’ll need to practice your chugging skills.
CHANDELIER
This game can be described as a cross-over of beer pong and flip cup. Chandelier is a super fun, fast-paced game that can get quite competitive! Each team designates one team member to compete in this individual challenge.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 red solo cup for each player
- 1 red solo cup to go in the middle
- 2 ping pong balls
- 1 bowl
- At least 2 beers per person in the game
- 1 full beer for the middle cup
- Referee to keep score
HOW TO PLAY
To start off, place one cup in the middle of a table on top of an upside-down bowl. Then place all the other cups in a circle around the middle cup. Fill each cup up around a third to halfway and fill the middle cup all the way.
Each player is designated one cup. The goal of the game is to bounce a ping pong ball into another player’s cup. If a ping pong ball lands in your cup, you must drink the contents and refill your cup before you can bounce it again. There are no turns in this game, so it will continue until a ball lands in the middle cup. When this happens, every player must finish their drink and then flip the cup over, like in flip cup. The last player to flip their cup must drink the full middle cup.
To score the game, the referee will need to mark a point for every cup each player sinks. But, no matter what the score is, if you flip your cup last at the end of the game, you lose and get zero points. The winner is the player who sinks the most cups and doesn’t lose the flip cup round.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
Chandelier is definitely one of the most difficult challenges in a Beer Olympics. Not only do you have to be able to drink fast, but you have to be able to flip a cup and bounce balls into cups. Set up and practice this game at home with cups filled with water. Practice flipping and bouncing, and you’ll be a gold medalist in no time!
SHOTGUN RELAY
If you haven’t shotgunned a beer at a college party, you haven’t really lived. Similar to strawpedo relay, shotgun relay is a full team drinking race, but instead of using a straw, you shotgun the beer.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 can of beer for every team member
- Something to pop the can (bottle opener or knife)
HOW TO PLAY
Every member of each team should stand in a line, with a can of beer and a device to open the can. Like any relay race, the team member in front of you must finish their drink before you can start. You must also wait for them to finish before you pop open the can. The first team to finish the shotgun relay wins.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
Shotgunning is not as easy as it looks. If you have never tried it before, you may want to give it a practice run before the Beer Olympics event. To shotgun a beer, you need to:
- Pop a dime-sized hole towards the bottom of the can
- Put your mouth over the hole and tilt the can upward
- Pop open the tab on the can
- Drink the beer as fast as possible!
CAN BOWLING
The final game on our list is a twist on a classic! After doing multiple beer drinking challenges, each competitor is bound to be drunk, so why not have everyone aim a ball at those empty cans bound to be lying around?
WHAT YOU NEED
- At least 10 beer cans for each team
- At least one ball for each team (can be a tennis ball, beach ball, or something else)
- Referee to keep score
HOW TO PLAY
Can bowling uses the same concept as ten-pin bowling, but you use whatever tools you have on hand.
Simply set up 10 pins of those empty beer cans upright in a triangle about 15 to 20 feet away from the bowler. The bowler then tries to knock down as many cans as possible with the ball. If there are any cans still standing, the player needs to chug for as many seconds as there are cans standing. For example, if you knock down 7 pins, you need to take a 3-second chug.
The winning team is the team that knocks down the most pins with each team member going once.
HOW TO TRAIN FOR IT
Hand-eye coordination is key here. To make the ball hit the cans, you need to practice. Try setting up some cans in your backyard or just simply go bowling with friends!
If you would like to see even more drinking games check out our drinking game page!