Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Winter (drinking) Games


Let the games begin! Every winter season, a sizable group of my friends collect in the San Bernardino mountains for some harmless debauchery, frivolity, and well deserved chillindamos. Over the years, we've sustained a number of inebriated adventures and games, developing a repertoire of winter events that require intense training and sophisticated equipment.
I'll start with homebrew since athletes must be fueled. 30 Gallons of homebrew arrived in Big Bear along with some other guest intoxicants. These beers were brewed during the epic 8 batch weekend in November. Among the beers brought, the Blueberry Wheat was rapidly consumed and with its hidden ABV of 6.8%, certainly gave us the sustained energy that no 'power drink' could ever provide. Andrew, above, enthusiastically topped his Blueberry Wheat with fresh blueberries (because anti-oxidants are important too).
Beer doesn't always travel well in bulk but thankfully my brother-in-law Tom hooked me up with a mini-keg of Faultline Brewing's Pale Ale. After being snow-chilled, we took out the mini-keg for some inebriated sledding. Above is Dave pouring a Faultline pint (not far from the San Andreas fault too). Minutes later, Dave was surfing a toboggan at record speeds.
Michelle showed intense athleticism, donning two sleds to break speed records. Just look at that smile, obviously chillindamos!
After a day of competition speed sledding, we resorted back to life, The Game of Life. We find this circa 1960's LIFE to be a far stretch from our reality so a number of squares have been modified to make this another gem of our winter games. Where's the skill, you ask? Well, every "Car Crash" demands a social. Do you know how hard it is to keep those little blue and pink pegs in those tiny plastic cars? With homebrew involved and the social interaction of cash stealing, tipsy spinning, trash talking, and child auctioning, the car crash is imminent at every bend in the road of LIFE.
The culmination of our Winter Games ended with a legendary game of Sloshball. The game is centered around casual baseball rules. About thirty inebriated athletes took the field where the main rule is to 1. have a beer in hand at all times.
If you've never played Sloshball before, here's the rest of the rules. 2. There's a keg on second base. While most find the yellow fizzy variety sufficient, we upped the quality to something more local, Bayhawk Brewing's Blonde. The fact is that more beer is spilled than is consumed so you must plan accordingly. VERY IMPORTANT: don't use or spill homebrew, that is bad!
Above is homebrewer and wine maker, Dave (Comrade from brewcommune), "warming up" before the big game. 3. All runners must stop at second base, finish their beer, and refill before proceeding to third base. 4. It does not matter how many team members are on second base but if no one can bat, your team gets an automatic third out.
Beware of seasoned veterans like Wesley (above) that can readily advance to second base and pound a brew in a moments notice.
Michelle's also dangerous with insane sloshball skills that one can only acquire from UCSB (in our book, U Can Study Buzzed).
Most athletes seem to be very focused and intense but as you can see from me batting above, Sloshball is above all, chillindamos!

Image Source: De Coubertin, Pierre, and Pumbaa80. The Symbol of the Olympic Games. Digital image. Winter Olympic Games. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Olympic_Games.

3 comments:

  1. That looks fun. We are having a similar event in about a week. I'm hoping for temps above zero.

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  2. I love this game! I shall have to play this game at some point. Maybe at a quaff social.

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  3. Playing in the snow is insanely more fun! With freezing temps, maybe you'll need to keep the keg heated - crazy. Our game finished when the lack of focus creeped in and we all gravitated to second base for numerous socials and keg stands. When dusted, we engaged in the victory keg toss (a few tried heartily to toss the keg over the backstop, luckily no one was hurt in the attempt).
    @Marcus: I've seen a couple of groups play sloshball at Crown Point and know that some parks in SD still allow kegs.

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