The game of beer pong has come a long way. Instead of needing to play on a ping pong table in your basement you can now play beer pong at the tailgating parking lot with lightweight folding tables, inflatable tables and even frozen racking systems. The one thing that has not changed over the years? Exposure to bacteria and viruses by sharing cups and tainted beer pong balls carrying diseases you don’t even want to think about.
To combat this exposure, most beer pong players will use a “wash cup” to rinse the ball before putting it back in play. This technique has been proven to only offer a false sense of security and really is ineffective in disinfecting the ball.
Scientific studies have shown that the wash cup is filled with more dirt, bacteria and viruses at the end of a regular game than any other item on the table. And people are running the ping pong ball through this mixture of filth and then throwing it into a cup that is then drank by another person? Pretty gross if you think about it. Unfortunately, for many beer pong players their enjoyment of the game supersedes their health concerns and they throw caution to the wind and will let their immune system deal with it.
We recently discovered a brand new product that aims to solve the beer pong disease problem. They are sanitizing wet wipes specifically designed for beer pong play. These beer pong wet wipes were designed by an avid beer pong player who grew tired of the exposure to saliva transferred diseases associated with beer pong. He came up with idea for these wipe to not only sanitize the balls, cups and tables but to not alter the taste of the beer after a cleaned ball landed in a cup. He came up with the Beer Pong Wet Wipe and recently has put the product on the market for sale.
When we first spotted these we thought to ourselves, “why not just use a Clorox Wipe?”. We carry a canister of those in our tailgating kit and use them to wipe down tables while out in the tailgating parking lot. A quick glance at the ingredients label and seeing those chemicals used in a Clorox Wipe and we figured a call to poison control would be in our future if we consumed anything that touched it. At the very least, the chemicals in the Clorox Wipe would make the beer taste funny.
We were sent a sample of these Beer Pong Wet Wipes and wanted to test them for ourselves. Our test was a simple one. We poured beer in a cup, dropped a ping pong ball on the floor a few times and then cleaned it off using one of the Beer Pong Wet Wipes. We then dunked the washed ball into the cup of beer and made sure it was submerged. We then drank the beer (Yeah, we know. We have to drink beer for “work”.) to see if there was any alteration in the taste.
Now we do not consider ourselves a beer snob but we have consumed quite a few beers over the years to know if the taste was changed. To our knowledge, we could not tell if the taste was altered and it did not have any aftertaste or discoloration either.
We contacted the inventor of these Beer Pong Wet Wipes to find out how this idea was started and what goes into making them. The inventor, Jeffrey Lerma, is an avid beer pong player but makes his living working in the janitorial and sanitary supply industry. Combining his passion for beer pong and his knowledge in janitorial, it provided him with the necessary knowledge and resources to redefine the game of beer pong. Jeffrey got in touch with his chemist and told him what he wanted to do. He wanted a sanitizing wipe that would cleanse and sanitize things but be okay for human consumption without altering the taste of things. After a few trial products the Beer Pong Wet Wipe was born.
Further compounding the necessity of coming up with this new product was all the research being done regarding disease transmission directly attributed to beer pong. Lots of diseases that can be transmitted via saliva include Strep throat, Epstein Barr Virus (a.k.a. mono, “the kissing disease”), Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Herpes, and Diphtheria amongst others. Beer pong players frequently use the same set of cups from game to game, and sharing drinks in this way is essentially sharing drinks with the person who played the game before you — as well as all of the other people that they have played with in the past.
Sadly, the alcohol in beer does not kill germs as readily as one might hope. In its purest form, alcohol takes 20 seconds to kill bacteria; beer pong players trying to hold their own in a game wouldn’t dream of asking opponents to wait minutes until the diluted alcohol in their Coors Light sanitized the liquid. Instead, most players dunk the ball in the wash cup. Unbeknownst to them, the wash cup is found to be most germ-laden of all by the end of the game.
What if you are reading this and say, “So what? I don’t play beer pong, so I don’t need these.” You would be wrong on that accord.
Not only are these Beer Pong Wet Wipes designed to clean and disinfect beer pong balls but they also can be used to clean grill tools. Most tailgaters don’t stop to think about cleaning off their tongs, grill fork or spatula between cooking different foods. If you were at home and had the availability to wash off your tongs between putting chicken on the grill and then your steaks, you probably would. But while out tailgating we tend to use the same grilling utensils over and over without cleaning them. By using the Beer Pong Wet Wipes you can now clean off those carving knives without worrying about it altering the taste of your foods.
After testing out Beer Pong Wet Wipes, we are going to have to say that they are definitely “Tailgate Approved”. Not only are they great for beer pong play but also versatile to help you stay healthy while grilling. We think that these sanitizing wipes are so good that we have permanently replaced the Clorox Wipes that used to be in our tailgating kit with the Beer Pong Wet Wipes. We can not only clean tables and other surfaces but also our grilling utensils and beer pong gear as well.
We liked this tailgating product so much that we have chosen to add it to our tailgating gear store. A canister of Beer Pong Wet Wipes contains 40 wipes that are 7″ x 8″ (17.7 cm x 20 cm). Each canister is priced at $6.95 plus postage. If you want to have a number of canisters on hand, buyfive canisters and we will ship them for the single canister price.
To buy your own Beer Pong Wet Wipes, please visit HERE.