Aus dem Haus
Bierkastenrennen & Vatertag – new German rites – Part 1
It’s common knowledge that Germans really do love their beer. It’s so dear to them that there are even special holidays and festivals evolving around this topic.
On Saturday I took part in the traditional, annual Bierkastenrennen (beer box race). It’s not a race commonly known to everyone but it is gaining more and more interest and fans. It’s a perfect spring outdoor activity often held on the 1st of May (traditionally known as Labor Day) where a team needs to run a given distance drinking beer.
Rules of the race I took part in said that the teams consist of 3 persons, at least one of them being a female (or a male as a matter of fact, i.e. there mustn’t be one-sex-only teams). We had to run around the Außenalster (Outer Alster Lake ) in Hamburg so around 7 km. Of course you don’t run all the time, I mean, unless you can!
What makes it all more difficult and fun is that you have to carry and drink a whole case of beer during the run. Different runs have different rules but we had to drink 24 bottles of 0,33 l. I was really glad to have 2 well-built men on my team!
It’s not always the case but we also had to ‘pass’ some tests on the road posts during the race. Such activities include turning, jumping, acrobatics and even more drinking. The time runs all the time so you’d better be quick. We didn’t win (this time!) but our time wasn’t bad and we surely had a good time.
As I said it’s not a tradition known to everybody (yet) so we met some amused glances and some bolder people even asked what was it with all the people running around Alster with beer boxes. We also met some people who seemingly had a similar idea but were carrying their beer in Bollerwagen. But more about that next week…
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great post as usual!
[...] I mentioned a Bollerwagen last week; this funny vehicle plays a significant role on the so-called Father’s Day (sometimes also called Men Day). It’s so important because it’s used to transport beer and is therefore the best indication on how much alcohol the Germans (German men) drink this day (they need to transport the alcohol on a cart, imagine!). [...]