LAST WEEK’S COLUMN about the world’s strongest beer had me thinking about some other classic beer records. The fastest chugger, the biggest can collection, the most pints balanced on a man’s head – you know, the fun, occasionally idiotic achievements that could only be inspired by, well, beer.

Like, how many beer steins can a person carry while walking across a room?

For several years, the Guinness world record for beer-stein carrying was held by Anita Schwarz, a Bavarian waitress who managed to lug 16 full liters of lager while walking 40 meters (about 110 feet). In 2008, she pushed that record to an incredible 19 liters.

Think of it: Nineteen glass liters filled with beer weigh almost 100 pounds. Watching the online videos, I’d say Schwarz weighs 140, tops. She grips seven steins in each hand, with five more stacked on top of them, and sloshes her way across the floor. It’s a heckuva feat.

Just weeks after she set the record, though, a beefy German expatriate named Reinhard Wurtz, of Sydney, Australia, topped her by hoisting 20 full liters across a room.

Not long ago, I asked Wurtz if he caught any grief for beating a girl, and he was unapologetic:

“Look, the girls have an advantage toward the boys. First, you need a slim hand [a big boy’s big hands don’t fit through the handles]. Secondly, the law of the lever helps the girls: They have shorter arms. And then, they are full-breasted, so they can even lean the steins against them. So you can see, it’s not always muscles only. “

That might be good news for a lady who’d like to win back this cherished world record. But, sadly, in today’s world of uber-competitiveness, it’s only a matter of time until the fine sport of beer-stein lifting is tarnished by scandal, probably involving male breast implants.

In the meantime, here are a few other beer records – idiotic and otherwise:

* Fastest beer coaster flipper: Dean Gould, United Kingdom, flipped 800 coasters in 41 seconds. During the same night, he caught 35 in a row while blindfolded. Gould owns a dozen other Guinness world records.

* Most beer pints balanced on one’s head: 237, John Evans, United Kingdom. Evans, the world’s pre-eminent head-balancer (see his Web site at www.headbalancer.com), has also balanced a Mini Cooper on his head.

* Fastest one-liter chug: 1.3 seconds, by Steven Petrosino, Carlisle, Pa., set in 1977. (Guinness no longer lists beer-consumption records.)

* Most beer consumed in 5 minutes: 7.75 imperial pints (about 13 12-ounce bottles), Eric Lean of the United Kingdom.

* Most beer consumed in one sitting: 119 bottles in 6 hours, Andre Rene Roussimoff, aka pro wrestler Andre the Giant, weight 565 pounds, now deceased. (Source: Modern Drunkard magazine.)

* Largest beer pyramid: 63,365 cases, built in the Netherlands.

* Largest collection of beer coasters: 152,860 varieties, owned by Leo Pisker, of Langenzersdorf, Austria.

* Largest beer festival: 6.5 million attendees, Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany.

* Bitterest beer: The Hop, by Pitstop Brewer, United Kingdom, measuring 323 international bittering units. (“Triple-hopped” Miller Lite measures about 10 IBUs.)

* Bitterest beer, American: Founders Devil Dancer, 200 IBUs.

* Biggest beer-can collection: 70,000-plus, by Jeff Lebo, Etters, Pa. He built an entire house to store the cans.

* Biggest beer bottle collection: 16,000, currently housed at Carlsberg Brewery, Denmark.

* Biggest beer selection, bar: 2,000-plus varieties, Delirium Café, Brussels.

* Biggest draft beer selection: 250 taps, Yard House, Long Beach, Calif.

* Biggest beer selection, festival: 2,238 varieties, Great American Beer Festival, Denver, (expected at 2010 festival).

* Most expensive bottle of beer: Lowenbrau, salvaged from the wreck of the Hindenburg, and sold in a 2009 auction for £11,021.50 (about $17,000).

HAS CRAFT beer jumped the shark?

If you’ve listened to the collective drone of the beer cognoscenti in recent weeks, it sure sounds as if it has. They have their knickers in a knot over a continuing quest to produce the world’s strongest beer.

The battle was reignited last November with the release of the hilariously named Tactical Nuclear Penguin, from BrewDog, of Scotland. The ale registered a bone-jarring 32 percent alcohol.

As two other small European breweries joined the fray this summer, the record leaped to 40 percent, then 45 percent, then an astounding 55 percent. Beer, which rarely exceeds single digits, had suddenly reached a strength that is beyond that of whiskey, rum and, probably, paint thinner.

The condemnation was quick and mean.

Writers at countless blogs and online review sites griped that it was all a stupid publicity stunt that would hurt the image of beer as a sensible, low-alcohol beverage. Overproof beer, cried one, would bring “a crass element to craft brewing. “

British beer writer Roger Protz tut-tutted BrewDog’s “overinflated egos and naked ambition. ” And Canadian beer writer Stephen Beaumont got his cap key stuck while pounding out his dissent: “Enough! Enough!! ENOUGH!!! “

I can’t help but think these people missed the joke. Did they not notice that bottles of BrewDog’s latest are packaged inside the remains of a dead squirrel?

Worse, they seem to have forgotten that craft beer’s incredible success over the past 25 years – the unprecedented rise of a small-business alternative to corporate blandness – is precisely because innovative brewers have broken rules and taken chances. Imagine what we’d be drinking if they didn’t suffer from overinflated egos and naked ambition.

Both BrewDog and Schorschbraer, of Germany, obtain their high numbers through a process known as freeze distillation. After fermentation, the beer is chilled to below 30 degrees and the ice crystals containing mostly water are skimmed off, leaving a relatively higher volume of alcohol.

Early this year, Schorschbock climbed to 40 percent alcohol. BrewDog, claiming that it had “struck a mortal blow to the sausage-munchers,” clawed back with Sink the Bismarck, a “quadruppel IPA” with 41 percent alcohol.

Brouwerij’t Koelschip, of the Netherlands, jumped in with Obilix, which reached 45 percent alcohol through both freeze and steam distillation.

In July, BrewDog answered with its 55 percenter. His tongue firmly planted in cheek, brewer James Watt named his new beer after Francis Fukuyama’s thumb-sucking 1992 conservative tome, “The End of History and the Last Man. “

The End of History, Watt intoned in an over-the-top online video, was “the end point in the evolution of beer. ” Just 12 bottles were produced and packaged inside – I’m not kidding – a stuffed gray squirrel.

Price for a single 12-ounce bottle: 700 British pounds, or about $1,100.

They sold out immediately. And the critics went ballistic.

It’s not real beer, they complained. This madness must stop!

Much of the criticism is aimed not at the beer’s flavor (for few have actually tasted these brands), but at the method of achieving the high alcohol. It’s as if these brewers have broken some rule that condemns innovation.

Yet throughout history, brewing – like all of mankind – has always advanced exactly because individuals have pushed the boundaries, with new ingredients, improved techniques and advanced knowledge. Everything from the isolation of yeast strains to the invention of the imperial IPA is a product of rule-breaking.

There have been failures, yes (Zima comes to mind), and sometimes the hype is unwarranted.

But this is the first time I’ve heard anyone say, “Enough! “

The backlash is especially hard to fathom when the people who are making these high-octane bombs seem to be having so much fun.

“We’re just having a little bit of competition, with a smile,” ‘t Koelschip’s Jan Nijboer told me. “You should see it as a joke. “

As if the underscore his point (and mine), Nijboer last month dropped an even bigger bomb, at 60 percent alcohol. Its name: Start the Future.

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CRAFT-BEER drinkers are falling prey to the same mindless “lifestyle marketing” that they reject in mainstream beer. Instead of the inane “taste the cold” TV advertising of Coors, they’re getting suckered by the unfounded hype that surrounds rare, expensive, high-strength beers.

That’s the indictment leveled by the authors of a new ratings book, The Beer Trials (Fearless Critic Media, $14.95).

The guide is co-written by Robin Goldstein, who earned a bit of notoriety a couple years ago when he exposed how easy it is to earn the influential Wine Spectator magazine’s Award of Excellence. He created a Web site for a phony Italian restaurant and submitted a fake wine list along with a $250 fee.

Within months, he had her award.

If there’s anything like that going on in the beer world, Goldstein and his co-author, Seamus Campbell, don’t offer any evidence here.

Their book mainly ranks beers based on blind tastings in which brands were not disclosed to participants. Tasters could judge quality without being influenced by the hype that typically surrounds expensive, limited-production brands.

“There is a clever subtlety in the ways that the most successful small producers are able to manipulate a sophisticated set of emotional levers to get us to feel a certain way about their products,” they write. ” . . . We convince ourselves that they’re good. “

Case in point: The Abyss from Deschutes of Portland, Ore.

The vintage-dated imperial stout is brewed with licorice and molasses and originally sold for $10. It was a smash hit when a mere 90 barrels were released in 2006, and it sold out immediately. Bottles soon turned up online for up to $40.

The beer sold out the next year, too, as distributors told consumers they’d have to order it quickly if they wanted the stout before it sold out.

But when Deschutes quadrupled production over the next two years, “the hype seemed to have vanished. “

The Abyss didn’t change, the authors say; it’s still a great beer and worth its price tag. The difference is merely that The Abyss “is no longer playing hard to get . . . it’s no longer the ‘it’ beer. “

It’s the same thing that has happened to wine years ago, when – because of hype and scarcity – prices broke free of their relationship to the cost of production.

This is exactly what I’ve worried about over the years as I’ve warned about the increasing winofication of beer, that as beer becomes increasingly “special,” it risks losing its appeal as the simple Everyman’s drink.

But there are two things that let me sleep at night:

First, beer is nowhere near as expensive as wine.

All of that hype – whether we’re talking about Pliny the Younger, Westvleteren 12 or Three Floyds Dark Lord – involves bottles that may cost $20 to $30, tops. Compare that to wine, where $200 for a heavily hyped vintage is not unusual.

Moreover, beer prices are still largely related to quality. With few exceptions, the more you pay, the better the product, according to Beer Trials’ ratings. (One of the exceptions: Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, at $190 a case, which received the lowest rating and was said to be “more in common with moonshine. “)

Second, overly hyped beer is hardly a new phenomenon.

Back in the 1970s, there was a certain beer everyone was talking about that was unavailable east of the Mississippi. Bars fleeced their customers for a glass. People drove all the way out to Colorado to buy a case. They even made a movie about a trucker hauling an illegal load of the beer across country, called “Smokey and the Bandit. “

That’s right – good, ol’ Coors.

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DRAFT BEER at home? What will they think of next?

Actually, the newest thing in beer has been around for as long as fathers have sent their kids down to the local saloon for a bucket of freshly tapped suds.

New, high-tech tapping systems, though, make that task even easier.

This summer, Coors Light became the first domestic brewer to introduce kegs for man caves with its Home Draft System. The self-contained unit fits in a fridge and promises 16 12-ounce pours of real draft beer.

The system, available in much of the nation by the end of the year, was spawned by the 5-liter Heineken DraughtKeg, produced in 2004 in conjunction with the Krups Home Beer-Tap System. (The sleek-looking, $200 Krups gadget, by the way, is an unnecessary yuppie doodad; the DraughtKeg will maintain its pressure for 30 days without it. )

What makes these home draft kegs such a marvel is their size and simplicity: No heavy stainless-steel barrels to hoist out of your car trunk; no bulky CO2 tanks to fill. These babies tap with less effort than it takes to pry open a can of Bud.

Now Newcastle Brown Ale is available in DraughtKegs, too. A couple of weeks ago, I brought one to an outdoor party, and it was an instant hit. After chilling it overnight, I plunked it down on a picnic table on a 90-degree afternoon. It couldn’t have weighed more than 15 pounds.

Easy-to-decipher instructions showed me how to insert a small plastic lever into the top, and before I knew it, the suds were pouring. (Make sure you have a cup ready; otherwise you’ll be wearing soggy sandals. )

There are no pumps or regulators. Instead, the unit has an internal CO2 canister that maintains perfect pressure. It stayed cold over the next two hours, and each cup filled with a handsome, two-finger collar of foam. The flavor was notably fresh – fresher than Newcastle in a bottle.

At $22, the keg is cheaper than what you’d pay in a bar, but it’s about 50 percent more than you’d shell out for a 12-pack.

Then there’s the matter of space. You may have a battle on your hands when your beer bogarts the milk shelf.

And finally, until this trend catches on, you’ll find only a handful of brands on tap.

In the meantime, if you’re jonesing for your favorite draft at home, there are alternatives, all available online:

_ Kegerator: It’s a draft tower atop a cooler that fits a half-barrel. The costly unit ($500 and up) takes up a lot of space and requires vigilant maintenance to ensure clean lines. Hint: outfit yours with a twin-spigot tower and stock it with two smaller, one-sixth (sixtel) kegs for added variety.

_ Door-mounted refrigerator tap system: Haul that ratty old Kenmore out to the garage, outfit it with tapping hardware (about $100) and stock it with your favorite kegs.

_ Jockey box: It’s a picnic cooler outfitted with a cold plate or coils. Fill the box with ice, then connect a keg and CO-2 canister. Even warm beer is quickly chilled before it reaches your glass. Cost: about $150.

_ Party pump: Load a heavy-duty plastic barrel with ice and a keg and pump away. Because you’re adding air (not compressed gas) to the keg, this is a short-term solution, good for one-night parties only. Cost: about $50, plus $10 for the barrel.

After that, the beer will be stale and undrinkable; you’re better off sending your kid down to the pub with a bucket.

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AS A REPORTER, I’m the one asking the questions. This week, I’m giving the readers a chance.

Q: I read your article about the hard-to-find Pliny the Younger. Please recommend something of a similar taste that one may be able to get hold of – just so I can have an idea what people think is the best beer in the world.

A: One of the reasons PTY is rated so high, I think, is its rarity. California’s Russian River brews the intensely hoppy imperial India pale ale only once a year and distributes it sparingly.

There are plenty of other, easier-to-find, high-octane double IPAs. Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA leaps to mind; but its cortex-rattling 18 percent alcohol by volume is a whole ‘nother thing.

Two of the closest rivals come from Michigan: Bell’s Hopslam Ale, which is a bit more citrusy without Pliny’s malt notes, and Founders Devil Dancer, which is malty like Pliny but with a boozier bang in the finish.

Lately, I’ve been digging Hop’solutely from the Brew Works. The Allentown, Pa., brewpub is now distributing both kegs and large bottles of this sticky, sweet, earthy charmer in the east.

Are any the equal of the famous Pliny? That’s up to you to decide.

Q: I want to get your recommendation on a top-of-the-line beer glass that can be used to enjoy every style of beer. Are there ones that you prefer over others? I read your column on the Sam Adams beer glass, and it did not sound like you were that impressed with it.

A: My gripe with the Sam Adams glass is that it looks just plain weird. It does a great job of holding the foam and delivering the aroma and flavor of a creamy lager, but it looks like something out of my high school chemistry class.

For an all-purpose glass, I’d choose a British imperial pint, one with a bulb near the top to contain the bubbles. Either that or a plain goblet, like the famous Chimay chalice, which holds a nice collar of foam with plenty of pillow space to release the aroma.

Neither glass, however, will properly handle a pilsner or wheat beer. Those styles require tall glasses to either show off the color (in the case of a pilsner) or contain the foam of a billowing hefeweizen.

Q: I’ve developed a taste for hoppy beers lately, but – after surprising myself with how buzzed I got – I noticed the high alcohol content. Are there any hoppy beers I can drink several of and not get tanked?

A: I checked one list of double IPAs (considered to be among the hoppiest ales) and found the lowest alcohol, widely distributed bottle is Lagunitas Maximus, at 7.5 percent abv. That’s not exactly “low alcohol. “

The reason is basic brewing: Hops and malt work together to create a balanced flavor. Typically, more hops equals more malt equals more alcohol.

The lowest alcohol hop bomb I know of is Nanny State, from Scotland’s BrewDog. The double IPA was intended as an extended middle digit aimed at the anti-booze ninnies who’d protested BrewDog’s earlier high-alcohol releases, including the 32 percent abv Nuclear Penguin.

Nanny State is made with enough hops to scour the enamel from your teeth – but with just 1.5 percent alcohol by volume.

For something more readily available, try a dry-hopped pale or amber ale instead. The styles are extremely aromatic, yet they can be relatively low in alcohol. Look for St. Rogue Red (5.1 percent abv), Boulder Hazed & Infused (4.9), River Horse Hop Hazard (5.5) or Flying Dog Doggie Style (5.5).

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THIS FOURTH of July, celebrate the holiday with the beer style that defines America’s independence from the British: Porter.

Yes, I know it’s a bit dark for warm weather. Don’t worry. Its alcohol is fairly low (about 5-6 percent) and its roasted flavors pair wonderfully with hamburgers or grilled chicken.

But there’s an even bigger reason to enjoy porter this weekend, namely patriotism.

“To say it is equal to any of London, the usual standard for excellence, would undervalue it, because as it regards either wholesome qualities or palatableness, it is much superior . . . “

That’s physician, scientific thinker and author James Mease, writing 199 years ago on the eve of the War of 1812. For the early part of its history, American porter was all about patriotism, not to mention the young nation’s distaste for all things English.

Porter was a wholly British invention, an aged, slightly sour ale that was brewed dark and strong, earning its name because of its popularity among carriage porters.

Its export to the Colonies helped define the superiority of our overlords. The professionally trained English brewed with the finest roasted malts; the primitive rabble of the Colonies substituted with molasses and licorice.

Not surprisingly, Colonial boycotts of British goods only occasionally targeted those luscious shipments of porter. You can imagine the patriot Samuel Adams eyeing wooden casks of fine English ale loaded aboard the ships in Boston Harbor and suggesting, “Hey, let’s dump the tea into the harbor instead. “

Kicking redcoat butt changed things. Complaining shortly after the Revolution that “we have already been too long subject to British prejudices,” George Washington launched a “Buy American” campaign, declaring, “I use no porter or cheese in my family, but such as is made in America; both these articles may now be purchased of an excellent quality. “

His favorite: the Philadelphia porter made by Robert Hare, a British-trained brewer who loathed the English.

By most accounts, it wasn’t just patriotism that gave American porter its reputation for excellence. There are reports of shipments leaving Philadelphia and making it to Calcutta, India, without spoilage. Meanwhile, writes Mease, repressive English duties on malt and hops forced Britain’s brewers to dumb down their famous product with additions of aloe, tobacco, quassia root and sulfates.

By the early 20th century, with Burton pale ale on the rise, porter was all but extinct in the United Kingdom.

In America, the style survived largely because German immigrant brewers – whose crisp, pale lagers would eventually dominate – adapted their early recipes to produce a dark porter made with lager yeast. The hybrid variety is still alive in the form of Yuengling Porter, black, roasty and mildly hopped, but light-bodied like a lager.

In the early ’70s, San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing returned us to the early porter that quenched the thirst of our young nation. Brown, smooth and robust, it’s a sublime celebration of darkened malts and fresh hops.

Back in Philadelphia, where it all began, Yards brews George Washington Tavern Porter just blocks from Robert Hare’s old brewery. It balances dark malts and molasses with an aggressive but compatible portion of Willamette and East Kent Goldings hops in a recipe taken from George Washington’s papers.

Today, dozens of American craft brewers view porter as the perfect palette for more adventuresome flavors. Vanilla, coffee, chocolate and smoked malts often find their way into the barrel, with results ranging from curious to astounding.

Try one of these this Fourth of July: Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Smuttynose Robust Porter, Sierra Nevada Porter, Deschutes Black Butte Porter, Rogue Mocha Porter, Avery New World Porter, Stone Smoked Porter.

Summer quenchers with Joe

Cool off with the fun taste of beer floats this afternoon at Bell’s Beverage (2809 S. Front St., South Philly). Try oatmeal stout with vanilla ice cream, wheat beer and your favorite fruit sherbet or your own sweet and creamy mix. Joe Sixpack will be serving up scoops and suds in a free tasting from 4-6 p.m.

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FIRST THEY made us fill up our own gas tanks, and I didn’t speak up because I ride the bus.

Then they forced us to scan and bag our own groceries, and I said nothing because my wife does the shopping.

Then they told us to pour our own draft beer and . . . um, hey that’s not such a bad idea, is it?

Introducing the Draft Master, the first do-it-yourself tap system for bars. The unit, installed at barroom tables, allows customers to pour their own drafts without waiting to flag down the bartender.

About 15 Draft Masters, including one at Tir Na Nog in Center City, have been installed nationwide so far. They’re already in about 400 in pubs across Ireland, according to Declan Duggan of Ellickson International USA, which produces the units.

“It’s like manna from heaven,” said Duggan. “Now you can pour your own perfect pint. “

I gave one of the units a test drive a couple of weeks ago and immediately grasped its appeal. Just give the waitress your credit card and fill ’em up. A digital readout tells you how much you’ve poured.

“It’s a conversation piece,” said Tir Na Nog manager Ken Merriman. “People see other customers at the table, and they want in on the fun. “

The twin towers pour two different beers – say, Guinness and Carlsberg – each chilled to its proper temperature. The faucets rotate, so you can just spin the taps toward you instead of getting off your butt to pour. No gushing, no spritzing, no sloppy mess – just pull on the tap handle and you’ve got a fresh draft ready for guzzling.

Sitting atop a well-crafted high-top table plunked down in front of a wide-screen TV airing the World Cup, the Draft Master draws an instant crowd. “It’s the best seat in the house,” said Duggan. “People actually call ahead to reserve the table. “

For those concerned that the do-it-yourself units may allow you to overdo it yourself, Duggan noted that the system is preset to pour about 10 pints. It’s not much different from serving pitchers at tables, he said, adding that the Draft Master is currently legal in 27 states.

They’re also practically dummy-proof, with high-tech gas monitoring equipment that mixes precise levels of CO-2 and nitrogen to produce optimal suds. (The monitoring also means that bars don’t lose money on spills: When a customer overflows a glass, he pays for every drop, even if it goes down the drain. )

It’s a primarily a gimmick, of course, like karaoke for bartender wannabes.

But it also represents a serious paradigm shift and not just because the serious job of pouring the perfect pint should be handled by a pro.

Beer drinkers go to the bar for more than just the beer. In today’s secular world of get-out-of-my-face individualism and isolation, the bar is the last great melting pot. We go there to rub elbows and interact – and that includes jabbering with the bartender.

The bartender as social commentator, sports expert, therapist, gossipmonger, bookie, tour guide and comforting friend would not exist if the beer tap were an ATM.

If we all poured our own beer, there would be no Old Mr. Boston Official Bartenders Guide, no jokes that begin with “a guy walks into a bar,” no Coach, no Woody, no Moe.

On the upside, there’s no need to leave a tip for do-it-yourself pints. Somehow, though, a few dollar bills seem like a small price to pay for a bit of human contact.

Also, how am I going to cop a free pint from a machine?

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