Beer Crawl 2.0

Last week I went for two beer crawls, that brings it to a total of three “Beer Crawls” on the beer crawl list.

A beer crawl as defined in Mumbai is a crawl that involves a group of people paying a “fixed” amount and then having the privilege of drinking as many beers as they’d like at a number of visiting bars. Obviously if a beer crawl is sponsored, you only get to drink the beer that the sponsoring company brews.

Now I don’t consider myself an all knowing  guide of beer crawls. I don’t believe such a thing exists. A beer crawl is like a serpent with many heads. It’s always changing. However after three beer crawl’s, I’d like to believe I’m a veteran of sorts and I definitely have the battle scar’s to prove it… both emotional and physical.

As a veteran of beer crawls, I’d like to believe I have insights to offer, guidelines if you will.

Before I begin, I’d like to give a quick recap of Beer Crawl 1.0.  After Beer Crawl 1.0, I posted about how the young guns of today can’t keep up with the wily vet’s such as myself when it comes to drinking beer. That’s right pacing yourself has a lot to do with it. Beer Crawl 1.0 left most of us extremely satisfied as it seemed to meet all the necessary requirements of a successful beer crawl. In fact on a scale of 1 – 10, I’d rate it a solid 8.

Now Beer Crawl 2.0 was supposed to be a grudge match of sorts. An opportunity for the young guns to make up for their dismal performance from last time.

What went wrong? Well, honestly everything that could go wrong. First of all the guy that was “hosting” the crawl was a complete idiot. I’ve met a lot of people in my life and while I may call them idiots, I do believe the guy on this beer crawl completely blew away the competition. This guy was an idiot. No other word for it. At the first beer crawl I may have wanted to beat up the guy “hosting” it. However, I refrained. The really depressing thing is, in comparison the new guy was a complete Asshat. I’ve also realized that I need to use the word “Asshat” more often. Not enough people use it, but I digress.

Other than the idiot that was “hosting’ the event, what else went wrong? Well a lot. In keeping with the mistakes I made as a beer crawl veteran. I’ve decided to compile a list of “guidelines” for anybody that decides to ever attend a beer crawl the Mumbai way. Rest assured, you will end up a lot happier should you choose to follow the guidelines.

So without further preamble, the official guidelines to a Beer Crawl in Mumbai (These were the guidelines we failed to follow for Beer Crawl 2.0):

1) Choosing Wisely: In any beer crawl, make sure that the people you choose to go with are worthy. You want to avoid guys that are only going to get drunk and then pick up women. This is reiterated in guideline #6 and cannot be spoken about enough. The point of a beer crawl isn’t to pick up women, it’s to get drunk and spend an evening with a group of people (preferably Manly Men) that enjoy “bitching” about different things.

2) The Beer: While it may seem hard to believe, whenever you go for a beer crawl you want to make sure that the beer served is something you’d like to drink. If you don’t enjoy the beer, you just won’t drink enough to make it worth while. This is tied in with guideline #3.

3) Money’s worth: With any beer crawl, please make sure you get your money’s worth. If you are spending Rs. 500, you must ensure you drink anyway where between 10 – 15 beers to get your moneys worth. If you spend Rs. 300, it can be anywhere between 6 – 10. For whatever reason, we found the beer sorely lacking in Beer Crawl 2.0. It just didn’t meet the expectations the beer set in the first crawl. In fact, after beer #2, I felt like throwing up. Trust me, this is a feeling you want to avoid at all costs. In fact, I will now take a long break from drinking beer. Let’s just say Monk and Dew is a lot better, let alone Monk and Coke.

4) Bars: The bar’s you visit on a crawl are very important. In fact one of the biggest let down’s in Beer Crawl 2.0 was the litany of bars we went to that completely failed to meet our standards. Other than one bar which happened to have Karaoke night, the rest were complete disappointments. In fact, there should be a rule that guarantee’s your money back if the bars on any beer crawl are pathetic. What’s the point of drinking if you don’t get good music to go with it. As I blog, I can guarantee that my playlist has better music than anything played at any of the bars that night.

5) Women: A beer crawl is the equivalent of a guys night out. While having women along on a beer crawl is fun as they add diversity and flavor to the group, the fact is they create unnecessary tension. After all, once any guy gets drunk they suffer from a severe case of beer goggles and the only thing on their mind is “How am I going to get the girl?”, thereby completely ignoring the sacred rule of “Bro’s before Ho’s”.

Which I must admit, even the most Manly of Manly Men have problems with. So to avoid this, it’s a lot easier to just leave women out of the equation. However, if you do have women that want to go on a beer crawl with you, well then lay down some ground rules like no flirting with any of the guys, no making one guy feel more special than the other, no flashing of breasts (unless approved by all men), basic stuff like that.

6) Man Whores: Avoid taking any guy that you believe is a Man Whore on a beer crawl. They are there for only one reason and that is to pick up chicks and get laid. These men have no respect for the Bro Code when sober let alone once drunk. Now, I’m a firm believer of picking up the occasional HCHHSSTT and getting laid. However, these are things that you do not do when on a beer crawl. Under any circumstance, it is completely unacceptable when going on a beer crawl with a group of guys to go pick up women. It is unconstitutional.

and finally…

7) Bottoms Up: The Bottoms up rule, which dictates that everybody going on the beer crawl is expected to be able to drink as much as possible, and the person that drinks the most number of beers at the end of the evening should forever be considered the “Greatest Beer Drinker of the Group”. Did I mention, I managed to have the most number of beers again?

While I’m sure there will be a few people that will argue this, it’s a fact. For the second beer crawl in a row, a certain young’un managed to pass out before the night was done.

This leaves me with one question before I go… Where have all the beer drinkers gone?

Tagged as: beer crawl Nov 2009