Welcome to part 2 of The Beer Guy’s celebration of “The Week After American Craft Beer Week” (“TWAACBW” for short), where we are highlighting four different craft breweries.  Yesterday, we met Jeff Erickson, a homebrewer for South OC Brewing.

Today, I introduce you to Chicago’s Arcade Brewery.

Arcade Brewery co-owner, Chris Tourre

Arcade is a prospective production brewery Chris Tourre, a do-it-yourself (DIY) homebrewer, started as an art project called Public Brewery.  Just as Dad’s are invited to our community of fatherhood at Life of Dad, Chris invited others to experience the homebrewing process as a way to create a community around the beer-making process.  “What I found was that people became enamored with the idea of having an impact on the creation of beer; whether it was physically helping me brew, donating an ingredient or simply suggesting a style,” says Tourre.  Enter Chris’ friend, Lance Curran. Curran knew all about community building and crowd sourcing through his work as director of Threadless, an online crowd sourced design and fashion company.  Together, they put together a similar model of using customer input, creativity and talents to help develop beers.  The result?  Arcade Brewery was born in May 2011.

Breweries don’t just start with an idea and a plan, though.  It also involves creating great beer.  Arcade’s idea is to have the production of beer and labeling heavily weighed on user input, involving various customer challenges. Tourre outlines how each works:

Arcade Brewery co-owner, Lance Curran

For label designs, we will have various design challenges that our customers can create artwork for.  There will be an online voting system that will allow our customers to vote on each others designs to determine who’s design will eventually go on the bottle.

For the beer submissions, we will start on a bit of a smaller scale.  We will focus on 3-4 beers per year that we will develop based off customer feedback.  These will essentially be seasonals where customers will have the ability to suggest general characteristics they desire. For example, the spices that go into our pumpkin ale or what characteristics they desire in their Oktoberfest.  It will be more of a voting process to begin with posed by our brewers.  Eventually, we would like to create some homebrew to production competitions for our customers.

“We feel we have some really unique ideas and angles with our visuals, but also realize that producing a great beer is the baseline to being a successful brewery,” says Tourre.  He continues, “We feel the combination of a knowledgeable staff and customer base will create a unique brand of beers that people can enjoy and take pride in.”

Just as creating a home brew can be a long and arduous task (as outlined in yesterday’s piece), so can creating a brewery.  For the time being, Arcade will begin as an alternating proprietorship with New Chicago Beer Company, a partnership that allows Arcade to brew their own beer to their own specifications, but on New Chicago’s equipment.  This arrangement allows for greater freedom in the beers that are produced and give Chris & Lance full control and ownership of the product.

And the plan for the coming years?  Tourre explains:

Generally speaking, we hope to expand quickly and move some of our more marketable brands, like 6-pack stories (an original comic book played-out across each bottle of a unique 6-pack of beer), out into the Midwest region more quickly since demand for those beers will be great beyond the Chicago area.  Since we are community oriented, regardless of expansion, we plan to have some beers that are only available in the Chicago area that we would develop with the local community. 5-10 years from now, we hope to have our own facility and a larger footprint in our distribution, with a streamlined website that engages, informs, and activates our customers.  We would love to distribute as far and wide as possible.  We feel based on growth projections we could be moving out of the Chicagoland area within the second year of operation.

Arcade currently has a Kickstarter campaign (donate today – there’s great rewards if you do, and you’re helping out a great cause – tell them The Beer Guy sent you) that hopes to raise $30,000 to help with these plans.  With 24 hours remaining in the month-long campaign (it ends at the end of the day), Arcade had a little over $3,000 to raise.

“Obviously our eye is on the prize…we will not be satisfied until we open our doors and have Arcade Brewery beers in bars and stores throughout Chicago,” says Tourre.  He adds that everyday is a challenge, but that the outpouring of support from fans and the craft beer industry has been the most rewarding experience.  One of those that has played an important role in Arcade’s development has been Chris’ father.  With a little advice from his son, Dad has become a pretty good home brewer.  A beekeeper for the past 5 years, winemaker for the last 15 years and one who likes to experiment with food, Chris’ Dad has provided gallons of honey for Chris’ different brewing experiments in what has proven to be two hobbies that turned out to be a great complement to each other.

The complexity and diversity of beer is what draws Chris to it.  “Each one has a story… Collecting and assembling a recipe is like telling a story to your customers…You don’t just create a beer anymore, you want to create an experience for your drinkers.”  Chris, on behalf of the Life of Dad community, thank you for providing us with your story and for sharing with the world the exhibit that is Arcade Brewery.  We look forward to your future collaboration with Life of Dad as well.

What’s on tap now at Arcade Brewery: 8-bit Grapefruit IPA – Arcade Brewery worked to create an advanced beer. Within the great brewhouse, an elixir was forged by the combination of hops, grapefruits, and pixels. This volatile wort mutated into a beer like no other. Its wonderfully aromatic nose with the perfect balance of grapefruit, hops, and malt; Arcade Brewery realized they needed to share their 8-bit creation with the world. Once unleashed, the Grapefruit IPA became a session ale like no other. (from Arcade website)

Up tomorrow: Westfield River Brewing Company – Westfield, MA

About The Beer Guy – A dad, husband, friend and drinker of beer. I review & blog about it all on LifeOfDad.com, the premiere social networking website for Dads.  The Beer Guy enjoys IPA’s and Pilsner’s, but will really try any kind of beer.  You may disagree on some of his opinions.  Let The Beer Guy know.  Reviews are published on Thursdays.  The mailbag is open on Tuesdays.  Read more here to learn about The Beer Guy, who he is and his beer rating methodology.

The Beer Guy, and Life of Dad, promote responsible drinking.  Never drink and drive.