PLOT: Inspired by family secrets involving a brewskie recipe, Yankee beer bozos go to Germany to challenge their hated German rivals at a secret drinking club.

Beerfest, the latest low-brow creation from the American comedy troupe Broken Lizard, is perfect for people who like their late summer escapism served cold with a frothy head.

Personally, I would rather drink my own honey browns in my back yard than watch these guys guzzling the hops down in a back alley version of Fight Club.

But Broken Lizard has obviously generated a following with its string of silly movies -- Puddle Cruiser, Club Dread, Super Troopers and most recently, on a mainstream Hollywood tangent, the big-screen version of The Dukes Of Hazzard -- so it is safe to assume there is at least a core audience for Beerfest.

I can't imagine it expanding Lizard's fan base or becoming a hit on the scale of Talladega Nights. Maybe I just lack imagination. But so does a comedy about binge drinkers.

The five members of Broken Lizard -- Jay Chandrasekhar, Erik Stolhanske, Paul Soter, Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme -- are involved in the writing and on-screen. Chandrasekhar does extra duty as the director.

Not that Beerfest looks directed in the conventional sense -- it's too sloppy. Despite the care the writer-actors claim they put into their work, the movie looks more like a series of spontaneously combusting sketches that go on way too long for such a lightweight comedy.

We meet the Wolfhouse boys of America. Because of a family secret that threatens them, the boys find themselves obliged to put together an Olympic-style binge-drinking team. The Wolfhouses & friends must pit their talents against the real pros -- a family of Germans named the Von Wolfhausens, literal cousins.

The Germans are led by an arrogant pig who runs a beer bingeing version of Fight Club. He is played by Jurgen Prochnow, best known for the German submarine classic Das Boot, which is mildly spoofed in this movie in a scene that is supposed to be funny. Ha, ha.

Other name actors slumming it are Donald Sutherland, Cloris Leachman, Mo'Nique and even a self-mocking Willie Nelson, who appears in a haze of marijuana smoke for a cameo.

One-time Oscar winner Leachman is a special surprise. I knew the old gal had spunk but she blisters paint off the walls here with her rants.

But, of course, that is exactly what you expect in low-brow comedy. It's still summer. And the Lizard is Broken.

BOTTOM LINE: Broken Lizard fans might enjoy this idiocy, but there isn't enough here to attract any new audiences for the troupe's silly antics.

(This film is rated 18-A)
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