Kevin Cross has climbed his Mount Everest. He has killed the dragon.

He has now consumed his 1,000th Guinness at Doyle's Public House in Tacoma. The moment of glory came yesterday at the first pitch of the Red Sox game and not a moment before.

"They won't give me my beer until the first pitch," he said, moments before his lips touched glass.

Doyle's was holding a party in his honor to mark the event.

"We at Doyle's are proud to have Kevin be the first to achieve this milestone," Russ Heaton said in announcing the event. "This is no  homerun record, but I can assure the only HGH he is on is Guinness."

Cross is now first to achieve "Gold" status in the Doyle's Guinness Club. That averages two pints a day - every day since the bar opened a year ago. That's not a bad pass considering he was also gone for three months out of the last year.

The number two position is at less than half his rate.

Cross still doesn't know what being a gold member means, those details haven't been worked out since no one thought someone would reach 1,000 pints so quickly.

 "The running is joke is that they'll give me one percent of the bar, but they'll probably just give me a two-by-four," he said.  "Maybe they'll just give me 10 t-shirts." - Dave Reed and Steve Dunkelberger