Arcade Brewery Launches its Kickstarter Fundraising Initiative

Chicago-based craft brewery looks to the public to help support its unique business model of blending collaboration, art, and beer.

CHICAGO, IL – April 23, 2012 – Arcade Brewery, a new Chicago craft brewery, is already gaining buzz through its collaborative efforts with the likes of “The Walking Dead” creator Tony Moore, graphic designer SEIBEI, and author Jason Aaron.

The start-up brewery has aggressively pursued the goal of creating fun and collaboration around their brand of beers.  Arcade Brewery’s latest endeavor of involving their community begins today with the launch of their Kickstarter fundraising effort. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/417753817/arcade-brewery

Arcade Brewery was conceived in 2010 when artist Christopher Tourre created his community-based art project, Public Brewery.  Public Brewery created a community around the beer-making process as Tourre held homebrew workshops out of his house and transformed art spaces into experimental breweries in which the public could participate in the production of the beers.

In 2011, Tourre reached out to his friend, Lance Curran, about the prospect of creating a brewery on the tenants of Public Brewery.  Tourre’s vision was to create a brewery that would utilize crowdsourcing through an online website to help create many aspects of the beer production, from label design to the ingredients that go into the breweries seasonal beers. 

Curran, a director at Threadless.com, was immediately interested and began reaching out to other artists to participate.  His direction of the Threadless Comics-On Tees line led him to create another brand for the prospective company, 6-Pack Stories: an original comic book played-out across each bottle of a unique 6-pack of beer.  Arcade’s first 6-Pack Story will feature the artwork of Tony Moore (co-creator of The Walking Dead) and is written by Eisner and Harvey Award nominated writer Jason Aaron.  Arcade has also joined forces with graphic designer SEIBEI to create an 8-bit logo for their first signature beer, the Arcade Brewery Grapefruit IPA.

Arcade’s Kickstarter has set a goal of $30,000 to start.  The duo explain on their Kickstarter page that the funds will be used to help offset the costs of initial equipment and supply purchases which are often a great barrier for any entrepreneur looking to break into the craft beer market.  Some of the prizes include basic Arcade Brewery swag, private brewery tastings, commissioned artwork by popular comic artists, a custom Arcade Brewery arcade cabinet, and even your own likeness in a future 6-pack story for one lucky $10,000 donor.

“Even with all the fun that we have to offer our customers, we realize that the beer inside the bottle has to be exceptional as well,” Tourre says. “We are confident that we will offer something engaging and unique to an already exciting and inspiring market.”