Great Leap Gears up for 11th Birthday With the Return of the Karl Long Challenge

One of the city’s first true craft beer bars, and one of the first whose acclaim spread far and wide across China following its opening in 2010, Great Leap Brewing is gearing up to celebrate 11 years of concocting Western-style beers with Chinese characteristics for the capital and beyond.

While there are a few specials to mark the occasion, the big draw is the return of the Karl Long Challenge. But who, you may ask, is Karl Long?

Back in 2010, when Great Leap was still in its infancy, Karl Long – who would go on to help manage GLB #12 for a time – showed up to the brewery’s original Doujiao Hutong location. At the time, they only offered eight beers on tap, and Karl elected to try all of them at once. Then he drank them all again, for a grand total of 16 beers in one sitting!

As the story goes, he got into an argument with a fellow patron who he mistook for Sabrina, of Sabrina the Teenage Witch fame, after which he proceeded to remove his shirt and unleash a menacing growl.

Thus the legend of Karl Long, and the Karl Long Challenge, were born.

The rules for this year’s competition are simple: After you sign up at one of four Great Leap locations across Beijing (and pay the RMB 350 registration fee), you’ll be given a stamp card with 15 beers on it. Your mission is to drink all 15 beers across these four locations in one day. Should you succeed, you get bragging rights and a special Karl Long GLB t-shirt.

If the thought of smashing 15 beers in a day seems daunting, there are two newer options for this year: the Reasonable Karl Long and Team Karl Long challenges.

For the Karl Long Lite, it’s the same sign up process as the original challenge – with a registration fee of RMB 300 – but contestants need only drink 11 beers and 1 ginger beer, with hitting up all Great Leap locations optional. The prize: a classic Great Leap Plastered 8 t-shirt.

For the Team challenge, groups of three people or more can sign up for RMB 180 for five beers each (so that's RMB 540 total for three people, RMB 720 for four, RMB 900 for five, and so on). Upon completion of their beers, each team member will receive a classic GLB tee.

If you’d rather give your liver a break and sample a few beers instead, they’ve got you covered there as well: Guests can try 11 200 ml glasses of Great Leap beers for RMB 160 on Oct 16 and 17.

READ: Beer Lovers Rejoice: 8x8 Brewing Project Returns, Double Up for Oct 15-16

Images: Great Leap Brewing