Brooklyn’s Barcade Is Taking Over a Gloucester Brewery
Back in April of last year Boston reported that a Brooklyn brewery known for collaborating the joys of playing videos games with serving up locally brewed beers was possibly eyeing Massachusetts as a future spot to open up more business. While that plan hasn’t seemed to gain traction just yet, the Barcade is making a Bay State debut for one night only.
Tomorrow, Friday, June 20, the New York-based bar will be bringing a truckload of video games to Cape Ann Brewing Company’s brewery in Gloucester to host an evening of craft-beer drinking, and video-game playing.
“For years you’ve been bombarded with tap takeovers—breweries taking over entire draft systems at your favorite local watering holes. Well Cape Ann Brewing will be partnering with the good folks at Barcade to bring you the worlds very first ‘Bar taking over a Brewery,'” according to event details posted on Cape Ann Brewing’s Facebook event page. “Boston and North Shore residents will have a one-time chance to feel the excitement of the renowned Barcade experience in their own backyard. Play classic arcade games from the 70’s and 80’s while enjoying some world class craft beers brewed right here at the Cape Ann Brewing Co.
Jeremy Goldberg, the owner of the brewery, said he has been friends with the guys who run Barcade since high school. After talking about events like bar takeovers, he decided it could be interesting to flip the dynamic, and offer something different. “It was just kind of a brainstorming thing. We are always talking about tap takeovers, and I thought they had a great concept to do a brewery takeover. It’s a nice way to promote small businesses and have a little fun,” he said.
Goldberg is hoping the brewery fills up, and people will spend the night tapping away on the 10 arcade games Barcade owners are bringing to the brewery. “Drink beer, play games: it’s the Barcade experience,” he said.
The Clam, a blog out of Gloucester, where Cape Ann Brewing company is headquartered, put it best in their announcement about this weekend’s event:
It’s important to mention that this is the first time Barcade has had a Brewery Takeover, and we got it first. That’s correct, for you following along at home: Gloucester, [Massachusetts] is weird and hipster enough for this to happen here. Not Salem, not Somerville, not Cambridge, not even Portland—but GLOUCESTER.
Although it might come as a surprise that Barcade didn’t pick a more suburban brewery location to set up shop, it’s not that strange that the bar owners eyed Massachusetts as a place to do their first-ever traveling arcade and beer crawl.
Last year, Paul Kermizian, founder and co-operator of Barcade, said the company would love to come to Massachusetts on a more permanent basis, and find a location in or around Boston. “Boston is definitely a place that’s on the top of our list—not the very top—but in the next few cities we [open bars in], we would like to think of moving there,” he told Boston at the time. “It’s one of the places we have been watching the last few years. We haven’t seen anyone do it in Boston. But we are a small company, so we are moving at our own pace.”
Goldberg said this event is a huge undertaking, but it could happen again. “We will see how this one goes,” he said.
Goldberg and brewers from Cape Ann’s will also be creating a new beer with the Barcade owners on Friday, which will hit the taps at all of their New York locations. Goldberg said the company did a Clam Porter with them before, and this year they’re doing one with Peppercorn.
