pub-crawl

A bar in the US

A pub crawl (sometimes called a bar tour, bar crawl or bar-hopping) is the act of one or more people drinking in multiple pubs or bars in a single night, normally walking to each one between drinking.

Origin of the term

A picturesque pub in the UK

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term (including variations like "gin crawl" and "beer crawl") has been in use since the late 19th century.

The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English defines 'pub crawl' as both a noun and a verb, with the noun (dating from 1915) being defined as "a drinking session that moves from one licensed premises to the next, and so on", and the verb (1937) meaning "to move in a group from one drinking establishment to the next, drinking at each." The term is a combination of "pub (a public house, licensed for the sale of alcohol) and a less-and-less figurative sense of crawl".^[1]

Details

Many European cities have public pub crawls that act as social gatherings for the local expat communities and tourists. These pub crawls focus on the social aspect of meeting new friends and being introduced to new bars in a strange city. The city that held the Guinness World Record for the largest pub crawl ever held was London, England (2,278 people) in an event organised by Tim The Tourman.^[2]

Worlds biggest bar crawl?

The largest bar crawl in the world, known as 'Seven Legged,' is held each year in Nottingham, England. In 2009, 6,750 students took part. The University of Nottingham's fundraising and events organization team 'Karnival' hosts the event each autumn. The event requires a team of seven, six of these team members are tied together in a similar fashion to a three legged race at school. The seventh member acts as the 'runner' buying the teams drinks at each of the seven bars which they attend. All teams must have their own fancy dress code. At the end of the evening the teams end up in a final destination. In 2009 these clubs were Oceana, Ocean and Rock City. The entire event raised £50,000 for Karnival to be distributed to local Nottingham charities.

SUNY Oswego Bridge Street Run

Every year on the final Friday of the spring semester, thousands of SUNY Oswego students embark on a quest that very few have completed. The Run is one of the largest pub crawls in the world. Students sport white T-shirts and travel down Oswego's Bridge Street stopping at more than twenty-five bars along the way. At each bar students have an alcoholic beverage and continue on while signing each others shirts and keeping tallies such as how many shots, beers, kisses, girls/guys numbers gotten.

Other notable pub crawls

In the greater Milwaukee, Wisconsin area, thousands of people have attended the Wolski's Pub Crawl, the Bay View Pub Crawl, and the Zombie Pub Crawls. The Rich and Bennett Annual St. Patricks Day Pub Crawl in Charlotte, North Carolina claims to be host to the largest pub crawl in the world. The annual event was host to 3,581 crawlers on Saturday March 15th 2008. San Diego held 3 annual "Stay Classy" pub crawls in which the proceeds go to charity. The event grew in popularity so fast, that the old format had to be changed for 2008 to a "Jam".^[3] The Ghent Winter Bar Tour in Norfolk, Virginia takes place each year on the last Saturday in February and claims to be the largest charitable pub crawl in the United States based on dollars raised. The annual event had over 1,000 participants on February 28, 2009 and raised $20,750 in one night for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.^[4] In Iceland, a “runtur” is a popular way of getting to know the bars and beers in the area during the celebration of Beer Day every year on March 1st -- many bars and nightclubs are open until 4:00 a.m^[5].

Notable pub crawls in the UK include the Otley Run, Hillsborough Street, and the Mumbles.

Variations

The Glasgow Subway "sub crawl" requires participants to drink from a pub near each of the stations on the circular route. Two similar events are the Circle Line Pub Crawl involving London's Circle Line^[6] (attracting expatriate New Zealanders on Waitangi Day) and the Metro Pub Crawl from Birmingham to Wolverhampton on the Midland Metro.

Pub crawls need not be officially organized events. Pub crawls, such as the Louisville, Kentucky "Bambi Walk", can be undertaken by friends when the desire strikes. According to Stuff,^[7] the "Bambi Walk" has been crawled, unorganized, since the 1980s.

Pub crawling has become a tourism category, with UK tour operators offering weekend pub crawls to former Eastern Bloc countries, and Australian touring company Thirsty Swagman offering a round-the-world pub crawl tour. ^[8]

Monopoly Board Pub Crawl

A Monopoly pub crawl is a pub crawl involving the visiting of public houses on each of the streets of a city which appear on that city's version of the Monopoly board. This is classically done in London, following the British version of the game, but could just as easily be applied to anywhere else having a dedicated Monopoly board and a sufficient quantity of pubs or bars.

Visiting all the properties including the stations in strict order is a long route and requires much back-tracking. Visiting just the regular properties in strict order, with the stations interspersed where most convenient (Fenchurch Street, Liverpool Street, Kings Cross and finally Marylebone), is much shorter, although the Strand has to be traversed twice. Allowing more flexibility in ordering allows for shorter routes.

In any case, Old Kent Road is a logical starting point as it is both the first property on the UK London Monopoly board and the most distant property from the others.

It is not uncommon for participants to take a Monopoly board on the route and have each pub sign the corresponding square of the board.

Santa Claus theme

In Wollongong, Australia, a Santa Claus Crawl occurs each December to raise donations of children's toys for local charities. The Santa Claus Pub Crawl 2007 dressed in Santa Claus costumes thronging roads and pubs.^[9]

In the United States, The Running of the Santas is an annual December event in which some Americans dress as Santa Claus and venture from bar to bar consuming alcoholic beverages. Various American cities have staged such Runnings but not with universal approval. In 2008, for example, the Boston Herald commented on Boston's scheduled Running: "Scores of beer-sodden, booze-soaked pub crawlers dressed up like St. Nick plan to hit the Hub’s streets during tomorrow’s “Running of the Santas” - an annual, nationwide drinkfest that has infuriated parents and watchdog groups. "Santa Claus is a treasured icon for children,” said Eric Helmuth, spokesman for Join Together, a Boston University health group that is fighting the jolly pub crawl. Helmuth said he’s concerned about the effect on kids who see “Santa careening through the streets drinking or going from pub to pub.""^[10] The international SantaCon is another event that sees seasonal crawls.

Divorce pub crawl theme

On the "Divorce Pub Crawl", people gather in support of a newly divorced friend in a gesture of solidarity. Divorce pub crawls serve three purposes - to provide support for the divorcee, to reintroduce them to a "single" lifestyle and re-engage them in the search for a mate.

References

1. ^ Dalzell, Tom. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. TF-ROUTL, 2005.
2. ^ Tim The Tourman
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ Ghent Bar Tour
5. ^ Beer Day from worldeventsguide.com
6. ^ "The Circle Line Pub Crawl". http://www.thecirclelinepubcrawl.co.uk/. 
7. ^ Stuff Magazine
8. ^ Thirsty Swagman
9. ^ Santas on pub crawl - Local News - News - General - Illawarra Mercury
10. ^ Heslam, Jessica, and James Hinton. "Running of the Santas bad for kids, groups say Ho, ho, hold it! Boozefest slammed". Boston Herald, December 12, 2008. Accessed January 17, 2009.

External links

• Pubvite.com - Online Pub Crawl Planner
• Light Rail Pub Crawl Planner
• CrawlPlanner