Beeps
and Beers has been something on a break, but I thought that a one year
celebration at a local arcade and bar called The Grid would be a good reason to revisit this article series. It is always an
entertaining place to visit, but with unique beers, new machines and
raffles to cap things off, the one year anniversary was a hit today.
The
Grid opened at noon today, and we were pretty much the first ones in
the door. Right off of the bat I noticed some of the new machines that
were set up such as Q*bert, Dig Dug and Baby Pac-Man. Next up was taking
a look at the beer menu. There were some holdovers from a recent event
featuring beers from Founders Brewing. That event is one of several
regular ones that The Grid puts on called Beat the Brewer. On those
nights they feature a brewery who send in some representatives that sign
up to play against patrons of The Grid. Winning can get you cool swag, a
free drink and more. I like the Red’s Rye IPA by Founders, but was more
than willing to turn my winning game of Tetris in a snifter of KBS.
Now, my first-ever Beeps and Beer article
covered Shipwreck Porter while playing Uncharted 4. Anyone who kept up
on these articles of mine knows I am a big fan of bourbon barrel aged
beers, and KBS is one of the best out there. Standing for Kentucky
Bourbon Stout, this hefty beer rings in at double digit ABV, with roasty
chocolate and warming bourbon notes throughout.The sign that I’m
holding above was my choice of swag after winning my Tetris match that
night. I do a lot of reviewing on this site, and KBS is always a 10 out
of 10 for me.
I wanted to mention the Beat the
Brewer night to give context around the type of events that The Grid
commonly has. As to the place itself, upon entering it there is a
staircase to the left that leads up to a handful of tables, a couple of
couches and a pair of retro arcade racing games. The centerpiece of the
upper level is a large television and an N64 that is playing my favorite
party game from that era: Mario Kart 64. This title was a staple of
ours in college, and it still holds up great today. Playing Mario Kart
64 doesn’t cost a thing, though there is a signup sheet next to it to
help keep things moving along if a line starts to form. Upkeep on
something like that has to be a hassle at times, requiring plenty of
spare controllers and parts, and since they don’t charge anything to
play one could argue that it’s got a questionable ROI, but it suits The
Grid perfectly.
The overall building design is a
tall one, with the upper floor only makes up a portion of the upper
space, most of which is left open and decorated with a Super Mario Bros.
aesthetic (complete with digitized, slightly moving clouds and green
pipes). There are numerous other visual touches to be found around The
Grid that really help to sell the retro vibe. A framed picture of Tron
on the wall near the stairs, a bunch of the glass backs from different
pinball machines line one of the walls above arcade cabinets and a
handful of televisions placed behind the bar cycle the television and
movies of my childhood. He-Man, Tron, Star Wars and more are playing
constantly.
out as well. There is a massive scroll-like image from Luigi’s Mansion
hanging high along one wall. The drink menu has plenty of
‘geek-friendly’ callbacks, from a tonic drink made with basil called The
Bruce Banner to a bourbon beverage topped off with a Slim Jim called
The Randy Savage and plenty more. My wife and oldest tend to order from
this menu, while I find myself most often going to the beers. Once you
order a drink, you get a handful of tokens. You can also purchase tokens
separately. There are about a dozen pinball tables (that take two
tokens each) and arcade cabinets (that generally take 1 as well, though
the Dragon’s Lair title rolled out for the anniversary event required
two).
and if I’m being honest – it is the kind of place I’d love to run if I
was entrepreneur enough to start up a business like this. The biggest
concerns about the layout have more to do with the building than
anything that the owners have chosen to do with the space. For starters,
in the video above you can see that it is something of a narrow
structure. When The Grid really gets busy, it can be a bit tough to move
about. The other are the tall, beautiful windows along the one side.
They look fantastic and provide great natural light inside during the
day, but can also leave a reflective sheen on the glass tops of the
pinball machines. I will say however, that when the natural lighting
goes down, the neon glow of the internal lights look fantastic.
first one held at 2 o’clock). Raffle items included the likes of The Grid drinking glasses and brewery swag
like a Saugatuck Brewing hat. There was a ‘quest’ baked into the
afternoon as well. Small sheets of paper were scattered throughout
listing out a variety of tasks to be completed for some swag. Now a
handful of the tasks were pretty easy, such as buying a drink and
counting the Mario Mushrooms hidden around the interior. Some were game
related and certainly a bit more challenging. I’ve never been a big
Galaga guy, with top scores that usually fizzle out around 40k, so
needing 50k was a deal breaker for me. I had far better luck with the
Big Guns pinball table, which requires a score of 1 million. Not that I
ever got there, but my first play was a score of 992k, and I broke 900k
two other times.
of the afternoon? Well on the beer front I had a Perrin Blonde Porter. I
will say that I love porters and stouts, and while I have had a few
‘blonde’ coffee beers in the past, this was one of the better versions I
have tried. It’s still light and easy to drink, with a nice coffee
flavor to it. I went with a 4 out of 5 on Untappd and with a more
granular system like what we use for our games, probably would put the
Perrin Blonde Porter at a 7.75 out of 10. It was a great way to start
things off. I opted for the cabinet that matched my shirt and played a
quick round of Street Fighter II. However, that is a standard machine
that is always there, so I wanted to play one of the newly introduced
cabinets today.
was Tron, which was advertised but unfortunately did not make the trip. I
was chatting with the staff about it and it turns out the table needed a
bit of soldering TLC to get it ready for Prime Time. However, Dig Dug
was another favorite of mine as a kid and I managed to easily roll out a
dozen levels on my first try while finishing the Blonde Porter off. I
then made my way over to Baby Pac-Man which… I honestly had never even
heard of before. However, that is one fascinating machine. The top half
is a traditional Pac-Man arcade game, while the lower half is a pinball
table. Neither my wife or I had any idea what we were doing, so she
played first and we thought perhaps the goal was to beat the maze /
arcade portion in order to play the pinball component.
never found out, since it is actually a good deal harder than
traditional Pac-Man games. This is largely due to the lack of power
pellets occupying the four corners of the screen. However, when I
played, I noticed a comment on one of the startup screens about using
the escapes to trigger the pinball component. I went down into one
almost right away and sure enough, the arcade screen changed and
suddenly I was playing pinball. The better I did in the pinball
sections, the better my score – and also apparently the better my odds
on the actual maze portion. After one of the rounds of pinball, I had a
proper power pellet I used to complete the first stage and move on.
Sure, it is kind of a gimmicky cabinet, but I have to say that the
novelty really never wore off on me and I played that one quite a bit
over the afternoon.
Mario Kart. I mentioned the Big Guns pinball table, and I have to say I
really enjoyed it. Of all of the pinball tables I continued to drop
tokens into, this one was my favorite. There are two levels of bumpers,
lots of bells and whistles and different objectives (I got the multiball
to unlock several times). We then made our way upstairs to play some
more of the aforementioned Mario Kart 64 with a glass of Chubby Squirrel
by Right Brain Brewing. I have to admit, I did not entirely know what
to expect there. I figured it would be a nutty beer until I read it was
spiced on the menu. Sure enough, it was an interesting mix of bready,
caramel notes offset by spices like nutmeg, clove and cinnamon. A solid
enough beer, but not nearly up to snuff when weighed against the Blonde
Porter and KBS previously. If pressed, I’d probably ring it in at about a
6.5 out of 10.
Article by Nick
