After a weekend in Oktoberfest we thought it would be a great idea to pull together some of the great German drinking games we discovered. The Germans have turned drinking games from a fun pass time into a way of life, and it’s amazing.
Top 5 German Drinking Games
Bierkastenrennen
Loosely translated to “Beer crate running”, this game is pretty much how it sounds. It’s more or less an all day event. This is a very common Oktoberfest drinking game because it’s one of those things you probably don’t want to try every night but is an amazing time.
The game is simple, decide on a distance and a course. Typically between 5k and 10k long. Then everyone splits into teams of two and grabs a case of beer. Teams must run the entire race while each team mate holds on to one end of the case. Nobody can cross the finish line until all the beers are done so make sure you’re drinking along the way.
FlunkyBall
FlunkyBall is one of the funnest drinking games you can play, period. It’s a team game that works best in larger teams of 3 or more.
Find a nice open area, preferably outdoors. Then each team stands on one side. A bottle is placed in the middle. Each player needs a full closed beer to start the game and they can ONLY drink it when the rules allow them to.
Teams take turn getting someone to throw the ping pong ball at the bottle, if they miss nothing happens. But if they hit it then the team that hit it can all crack open their beers and start chugging. They must stop chugging as soon as the other team runs in and retrieves the ball. First team to have every member finish their beers wins.
Hammerschlagen
This game combines all the fun of wildly swinging a hammer with the excitement of pounding back drinks.
To set it up each player hammers a nail into a stump about half way so that it stands up straight. Then in turn players swing the hammer (pointy side down) at their own nail. If they miss they got to down a beer.
First person to get their nail all the way into the stump wins the game.
Schock
This one is a dice drinking game, somewhat similar to poker in that players take turns trying to get the best hand with their dice. This game is a little harder to grasp than most drinking games from Germany since there’s a lot of rules. If you wanted a full detailed description of how to play, check here.
To start the game you need 13 tokens of some kind, this can be anything like pennies or beer coasters.
Players take turns trying to get the highest score they can with three dice. Each player gets up to three rolls to see how well they can do. Players are only allowed to keep the 1s they roll between rolls, but they can stop at any time to finish with the hand they have.
The order of values from lowest to highest goes like this.
- Bare Number (The numbers of the dice from highest to lowest)
- Streets (all three dice in sequence, such as 2,3,4) – 1 token
- Bock (All three the same number) – 2 tokens
- Schock (Two 1s) – 3 tokens
- Schock Aus (Three 1s) – 4 tokens
The loser of each round gets tokens equal to what the highest roll was. And each player that didn’t win the round drinks to drown their shame.
Looping Loouie
Yes, that one. The children’s game. In the a brilliant showing of German innovation this game has gotten hugely popular as a drinking game across Germany.
Basically this game just involves playing a regular game of Looping Louie and drinking whenever you’re knocked out. This is one of those great games that only seems to get harder with each passing shot.
If you don’t already own a copy, you can get one here.
As far as German drinking games go, these were our favorites. But there’s plenty out there so check out what else we have in store. There’s plenty of great options for Oktoberfest drinking games to be found in our drinking game catalog!