As a 21-year-old Ohio University student, I’ve experienced my fair share of bar crawls on the streets around Ohio University. I’ve seen sorority girls dressed up as Tom Cruise in Risky Business with oversized oxfords and tube socks weaving in and out of the many bars that Athens, Ohio hosts. I’ve seen bar-hopping frat boys, dressed head to toe in patriotic gear like it’s the Fourth of July, chanting “USA! USA! USA!” in the dead of winter.

I thought my summer stint in Charlotte would expose me to a population of young adults, like me, who are pursuing professional roles or have already assumed them. I heard about the high popularity of micro-breweries and NoDa bustling with wayfarer-wearing, young business-casual Charlotteans discussing their favorite wine and cheese parings or the advantages of dry-hopping versus wet-hopping and thought I had a good grasp on the city’s culture.

Then I saw a list of the bar crawls to be held all over the QC this summer. These events — for which participants register and pay around $30 for tickets that cover entry and often include a drink special at each bar — happen almost weekly in this city, and it looks like the organizers are starting to run out of ideas.

The unoriginality for some of these crawls makes me glower. “The Great American Bar Crawl,” for example, takes place July 30 and costs $30 per ticket. I’ll give you three guesses as to what the theme is. Yep, the EventBrite listing states, “We've set up the venues for the largest, most patriotic bar crawl the world has ever seen! All you have to do is put on your most patriotic outfit and head to the registration location. We'll have the ridiculous drink specials in place, and the party ready for you!”

The GABC will also be held in cities like Nashville, Tennessee; Wilmington, North Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Jacksonville, Florida. Their website also encourages participants to “gear up” before the big day (which doesn’t even fall on July Fourth, but I guess an excuse to drink doesn’t need to be logical), by buying patriotic garments such as hats, bandanas, tank tops and pants on Amazon; all the better to lose the friends that convinced you to come in a sea of red, white and blue.

For those with more specific regional tastes in shitshows, the Country Bar Crawl will be in Charlotte next week. It’s a little more appropriate, considering we are in the South and, for some inexplicable reason, people embrace southern culture a little closer during the heat of the summer. Expect a bunch of daisy dukes and cowboy boots for this party July 23, because we all know that country music and Southern culture is truly at the heart of the Queen City.

If I’m being honest with myself, I see the merits of signing up for a sponsored bar crawl: “free” stuff to commemorate the event, drink specials, no cover charge at specific bars and there’ll be a ton of new people to meet and bond with over your mutual love of getting trashed Uptown.

But at the same time … why? It’s seems like a thinly-veiled money-making scheme that ultimately asks Charlotteans to pay about $30 just to go to bars that are packed beyond the point of a normal night. It’s hard for a top-party-school-grown professional drinker like myself to see the advantages of paying that much money for a measly six hours of no cover access and hardly-special drink specials.

Fortunately, there is an alcohol-fueled journey available for upturned-nose, beer-snob hipsters like me who don’t see the upside in themed bar crawls that pack similarly dressed people into overly crowded bars, which honestly doesn’t sound all that different from a normal weekend night in Uptown.

Trolley Pub makes for an interesting alternative that allows you to make your own bar crawl. Participants chose their own route, drink their own beer and provide their own transportation for just $30 a pop. Yes, it’s the same price as the generic bar crawls but a quick look at its website shows the experience is more intimate, as you’re sharing the trolley with a small group of people. Perhaps most appealing is that fact that it’s BYOB, so the beer really is on special and there are no lines.
Everyone on the Trolley Pub brings their own sixer, sets it in the coolers and up to 14 drinkers start pedaling to the locations on the tour they chose. There are two different sets of tours — a Charlotte Uptown tour that includes locations Flight Beer Garden and Tilt on Trade, and a NoDa tour that includes Birdsong Brewing Co., Heist Brewery, Davidson Street Public House, Jack Beagles and other NoDa must-visits.

If you’re simply not interested in paying $30 to hit the bars in any fashion, there’s one last bar crawl option available: DIY. It’s pretty simple, just grab a few of your best drinking pals and hit up the finest breweries around town, making sure to try beers or cocktails you’ve never had or heard of.
There’s also the mythical game of beer golf, in which you and some friends find a dense bar district and attempt to drink a single beer at 18 different spots that serve. Drinking 18 beers in one night is not necessarily something that Creative Loafing condones, although it’s recently been said that we are an alcoholic city now, so I’m sure some of you can handle it.

But seriously, don’t be an idiot, drink responsibly.