Beer Ball Is The King Of Outdoor Drinking Games

Buzzy Robinson7 years ago

The spring semester is every college student’s favorite time of year. Pleasing changes in the weather are accompanied by noticeable changes in societal norms. It’s suddenly acceptable to start dumping tallboys of half-and-half Twisted Tea into your face at the crack of dawn like it’s the Boston Harbor in 1773. It’s also (inexplicably) universally understood that if you are a male who is planning on attending an outdoor party during the day, you are required to wear a throwback basketball jersey.

At any other time of year, wearing a Jackie Moon number 33 Flint Tropics tank with khakis and mud-caked Chuck Taylors would be an absurd look. But for some reason, at any point on during the spring semester, you blend right into the crowd. Jerseys have become the unofficial official uniform of collegiate day drinking. Not unlike a piss-stained pair of lederhosen during Oktoberfest, a jersey at a day rage lets everybody know that you’re down to clown.

Those who partake know that springtime day-drinking is a thoroughly pleasant experience. However, I have encountered one noticeable flaw at outdoor parties lately, and that is the current drinking game landscape. I’m a huge fan of table games. It is (probably) a scientific fact that rules make drinking more fun. To me, beer pong is like a communally sanctioned blurring of that pesky line that separates alcoholism from gamesmanship. Sure, you just drank ten beers in half an hour, but it was all in the name of competition.

There are a few notable problems with playing beer pong outside, though. First, the ball gets incredibly dirty. Call me soft, I don’t care. A water cup doesn’t change the fact that every time the ball goes off the table you have to pick it up out of the mud like you’re digging for oysters at low tide. I will still drink the beer but I’m not too happy about its new topsoil aftertaste. The second issue is wind. If you’re like me, you tend to put a healthy dose of arc on your shots. Depending on the wind, this means that the ball is just as likely to end up in the neighbor’s yard as it is to land in the other team’s cups. Which brings me to the final issue, which is the cups themselves. When you’re outside, they can be difficult to come by. Solo cups don’t grow on trees and it’s annoying having to trek all the way back indoors just to retrieve cups that will ultimately end up on the ground.

Fortunately, there is one game that solves all of these problems. And that game is beer ball. Sometimes referred to as “corners” or “dodge beer,” beer ball is a four-player table game that involves four full beer cans, one on each corner, and a single ping pong ball. A player throws the ball at one of the opposing team’s beer cans. If the ball hits one of the opponents’ cans, the shooter’s teammate cracks open their beer can and starts chugging until the other team is able to retrieve the ball and set it back on the table. The game goes back and forth this way until one of the teams wins by finishing both of their beers first.

Beer Ball solves the dirt-cup problem because it involves exactly zero cups. Boom, simple. The ball is purely meant to serve as a projectile. It has no physical interaction with the player’s beverage. The game also minimizes the wind interference because there is no finesse in the shots. Players usually whip the ball at each-other like Randy Johnson on the Diamondbacks trying to make the other team chase it down so that they can chug longer. It’s a game that was meant to be played outside. It’s fast-paced, high energy, and competitive. This Spring, I fully plan on throwing out my shoulder at least once playing Beer Ball. Which is a fair price to pay for the best damn outdoor drinking game known to man..

Image via Youtube