Beer Pong, also known as "Beirut" is a favorite game around college campuses and pretty much anywhere you can find people who are of legal drinking age looking for a good time. Though the rules of the game are fairly simple, Beer Pong requires a bit of skill, coordination, and luck.
A Place to Play - Choosing to play Beer Pong in a room full of your friend's prized antique thimble collection is just not a good idea. Beer Pong can get a little exciting, and there needs to be enough free (safe) space for yourself and your friends to move around without knocking things over.
A Table - Generally any long, flat surface, such as a table, is good to play Beer Pong on. Obviously a specialized Beer Pong table will be best for hard core beer pong enthusiasts.
Friends - While you can play Beer Pong with enemies, it is more fun to play with people who like you. You can play Beer Pong with any number of people, and it can even be played one-on-one, but it is pretty impractical to play by yourself. Also, it is best if you only play with people who are of legal drinking age, as doing otherwise is well, illegal.
Cups - The cups you use should be plastic, and should hold about 16oz of liquid. Also, make sure you only fill the cups halfway. While filling them all the way to the top may sound like a good idea, it just makes the game even harder than it is, and it won't last as long because everyone will be too inebriated to play after just one game.
Ping Pong Balls - You can get some pretty sweet ping pong balls from DrinkingStuff.com (see below).
Beer - Playing Beer Pong with your choice of Beer is standard. Playing Beer Pong with liquor is just going to make everyone throw up and/or get alcohol poisoning. You should only play Beer Pong with wine if you are too stuck up to drink beer.
Fill 20 plastic cups halfway with beer, and fill two extra cups with water. The two water-filled cups will be for cleaning the ping pong balls off when they fall to the ground (which happens a lot). Make sure to replace the water in the cups often, as drinking beer that's had a dirty ping pong ball in it is just disgusting.
Take 10 cups and arrange them into a pyramid shape on one end of the table, and repeat with the other 10 cups at the other end of the table. The point of the pyramid should be facing the opposing side, and the back row of cups should be lined up at the very edge of the table. Also, make sure the cups are rather close together. If you think this makes the game too simple, don't worry, it gets harder.
Decide which team will start playing first. This can be accomplished by a simple game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" or you could each take shots at each other's cups until someone lands a ping pong ball into a cup. Whoever succeeds will go first.
A 50's Style Instructional Beer Pong Video
Each team takes turns trying to bounce, toss, lob, or throw their ping pong ball into the opposing team's cups. There are many other rule variations as to what can happen after a team member makes a shot. Sometimes it will be okay for a person to knock a bounced ball out of the way, or catch it, causing the team member who threw the ball to have to drink one of their own cups. Make sure you find out the rules of the particular game you are playing, as some Beer Pong players may become annoyed with you "newbies."
Once a ball ends up in a cup, an opposing team member must drink the beer from that cup, and then that cup will no longer be in play. The remaining cups on the table can either remain where they are, or you can choose to rearrange them into smaller pyramids, diamond shapes, or triangles.
Keep playing until one team has no more cups left on the table. The team who drank all their cups is the loser.
Some Really Amazing Beer Pong Shots
There you have it! If you have a really good time playing Beer Pong, you should consider going pro. You could be famous on YouTube, like these guys in the video above. Also, you can find everything you need to play Beer Pong right here at DrinkingStuff.com, except the beer of course. For that, you're on your own. Good luck!
