There was a common strategy.
Royal Crown Hotel owner Ethan Ortlipp who also owns Coal and Cedar in Newcastle city centre has seen plenty of tactics, from stacking glasses to careful arrangement to pincer-like grips around the rims, but on Saturday night, every challenger opted for the bear hug.
The rules were simple enough - there was an informal track from the bar, through the dining area, into the beer garden, and back, and whoever could successfully carry the highest number of full schooners without a loss or major spill would win the day.
Most of the locals at the bar knew David Mcloughney as Bellows, as he tore off his shirt and started carefully arranging 20 schooners. If he could make it around the back of the bar, he would have just beaten Tommo O'Shaunessey's record of 16.
Jordan Hoey had made nine look easy, even with his jacket turned in reverse like a surgeon's gown to prevent spills.
"Thirty-six!" he said, with a wry grin when asked how many he had managed.
Courtney Henshaw had just pipped Hoey at the post to carry 10 with a flourish at the end. But now, the tension was rising with every additional schooner.
It wasn't an easy feat - the standard Headmaster glass is about 145 millimetres tall and about 80 millimetres wide with no handle - it's hard to wrap your hands around more than a few. They're cold, slippery when wet, awkwardly slick, and obstinate to arrange. Carrying a trio is easy enough, and some old salts can often manage four, but tackling upwards of 10 requires careful planning.
O'Shaunessey had spent some time at the bar organising the glasses into a matrix so that when he wrapped his fingers around them, they seemed to lock onto his arms and against his chest. As he made his way through the bar, his face was set in stern concentration.
At the other end, he unpicked his work carefully so as not to lose a dangling frothy caught on his shirt. The gauntlet had been thrown down.
Bellows is a tall bloke with long arms and big hands, but when the score of schooners was lined up before him, the gravity of the tasks at hand seemed to clarify. Undaunted, though, he went about arranging and packing his freight. At one point, he seemed to consider stacking a tessellated pattern on top of each other, not unlike the German tradition of stein carrying, but decided against it.
Ultimately, he wrapped his arms around the lot, swiftly hoisted them up to his chest, and set off.
The first hurdle, getting through the narrow pass leading to the bar's back, was taken in his stride. The gauntlet of dining tables down the back hall was next, which he traversed steadily. At the door to the outer court, things started to come unstuck.
Bellows' face changed as he felt one, then a pair, then a trio of glasses from deep within his matrix slip. He was frozen for a moment as the load seemed unsteady. A quick dash to the finish line and the Dudley local was able to save a handful, but the record would stand at 16.
It was the first time the Royal Crown at Dudley had run the competition, but Mr Ortlipp said the strong lineup of challengers at the weekend meant the schooner-carrying contest could become a mainstay for the local haunt.
"I think it's gone well. We had a great crowd for it," he said as he piped up the spill. "Twenty was a bit of a collapse, but it was a great effort. We had nine and 10 delivered beautifully."
"We'll do it again next year. It was pretty fun."
