You’ve seen it happen. Somebody at the German tent gets talked into holding a full stein straight out in front of them, the crowd starts counting, and about ninety seconds later their arm is shaking like a paint mixer. Everybody laughs. Somebody buys the next round.
That little bit of chaos has a name. It’s called Masskrugstemmen, and it’s a real sport with a rulebook, state championships, and people in this country who train for it the way other folks train for a 10K.
What a stein holding competition actually is
Hold a one-liter beer stein, arm locked straight, parallel to the floor, out in front of your body. Last person still holding wins.
The stein is the part people underestimate. Empty glass runs close to three pounds on its own. Fill it and you’re at roughly five and a third. That’s a gallon of milk hanging off the end of a straight arm, and your shoulder isn’t built for it.
Sanctioned rules run tight. Closed fist around the handle. Thumb stays against your index finger and off the top. Arm extended in front of your chest, level as a shelf, with the logo turned toward the crowd. Bend the elbow, lean back, or let the stein drift upward and you pick up a warning. Two of those and your day ends.
Some things end it right away. Spilling any beer. Setting the stein down. Switching hands. Touching it with your free hand. Tape, braces and chalk are all out.
Where it came from
Nobody can hand you a founding date. The sport came up through the same Bavarian world that gave us finger wrestling and stone lifting, contests built around whatever a working person could do with their hands at the end of a long week.
It also came up out of the job itself. Anyone who’s watched a server cross a crowded beer tent with an armload of full mugs has watched the training regimen. Oliver Strümpfel, a Bavarian tax official, carried 29 full steins forty meters at the Gillamoos festival in 2017. That’s more than 150 pounds of glass and beer moving across a field, and it stood as a record because he spilled less than ten percent getting there.
German families brought the tradition to America, and it settled in wherever Oktoberfest took root. The U.S. Steinholding Association formed in 2015, started running state championships in 2021, and crowned its first national champion in Cincinnati in 2025.
The numbers that make you sit up
Most first-timers last three to five minutes if they’re men, one to three if they’re women. Three minutes under a five-pound stein is a long stretch to be alone with your thoughts.
The U.S. women’s record belongs to Taylor Handy, who held for 6 minutes and 10 seconds at the 2022 Hofbräu championship in New York. Four seasons of challengers haven’t touched it. Jill Roberts came within ten seconds in 2024, and three women have posted 5:57 since, including Katja Derrickson, who won the first U.S. national title in Cincinnati last November.
On the men’s side, Dave Sturzen, an X-ray technician from Kalispell, Montana, went 23 minutes and 22 seconds at a qualifier in Butte in 2024. He trains every other day, holds for at least twenty minutes, and works to failure. He’s told reporters he has the grip mapped out down to the millimeter, that he knows the exact spot on every handle where each finger belongs. The association hasn’t formally certified that one, since he used a Sam Adams stein rather than the dimpled glass required at sanctioned Hofbräu events.
Twenty-three minutes. Go pick up a gallon of milk and hold it at shoulder height while you finish reading this.
Where you’ll find it around here
The Rushmore German Club has run Sommerfest at the Central States Fairgrounds since 1982, and this year marked the 43rd. The tent goes up 60 feet by 150, packs out most weekend nights, and Rick Borger and the Average German Band play until midnight. And tonight, August 28, 2026 at 7 pm, a stein will get hoisted.
The tent runs on charity money. Around ten Black Hills organizations benefit, and every dollar from their stein auctions that they have during the week goes to the Hospice House.. Big bar manager Mark Kirchgesler said it plainly this year: the better the tent does, the more goes back to the community.
If the fair snuck past you, Bierbörse hits its 16th year on Saturday, October 3, from noon to five at Main Street Square. Prices on the beer rise and fall with crowd demand, which is its own kind of sport.
If you’re going to try it
Grip the handle with four fingers and keep the thumb off the top. Breathe. Pick a spot on the wall and stare at it. Around two minutes your shoulder is going to burn. That’s normal, and the folks who last are the ones who knew it was coming.
Then set it down clean, and go tip the folks carrying twelve of those at a time.
