Long Read! Inside the Surprisingly Intense World of Competitive Steinholding
Notes de l’épisode
On this week's Long Read, with Outside Magazine's Features Editor Fred Drier, we welcome you to fall—specifically, to Oktoberfest. Thanks to the magic of marketing, the German festival where people don lederhosen, drink beer, and sing songs has spawned a new tradition.
Masskrugstemmen is the German word for competitive steinholding. You heard that right; it's a competition in with competitors hold beer steins full of beer and ... well, that's about it.
In 2025, reporter Martin Fritz Huber traveled to Central Park to check out the Masskrugstemmen National Competition, to soak up the suds and the fun at the event, and then for this story, he took a deep dive into the wacky world of Steinholding.