Lowry Parcade hosted an epic night on Tuesday as local breweries competed in the inaugural Battle Royale to determine which of them has the best craft beer — and video game skills. After multiple overtimes, the Tampa arcade and beer tavern’s showdown came down to the last pint, with one winner nabbing the coveted Battle Royale Champion Belt.
Battle Royale was a first for Tampa Bay Beer Week, yes. However, it surely won’t be the last.
Abuzz with both gamers and brewers, the event challenged five skillful teams — 7venth Sun Brewery, Angry Chair Brewing, Coppertail Brewing Co., Hidden Springs Ale Works and Six Ten Brewing — to a chaotic symphony of high-stakes arcade classics. The competitors clustered around the Parcade’s various machines, letting out bursts of cheers and swears throughout the evening.
Oh, and everywhere there was beer from the participating breweries — beer that patrons could order to score the teams some extra points.
“We started with [the Battle of the Brewery] game night two years ago on our inaugural soft open,” said Parcade owner Robert Leonard. “This is a throwback to wrestling, where you see that battle royale where everyone is running in, taking each other on.”
The breweries faced off in a round-robin format, meaning one team battled another team during each round, with four rounds of games total. In this format, every game won was worth five points. After a toss of the coin, one brewery selected an old-school game of their choice, and picks ranged from Skee-Ball and Mortal Kombat to Tapper (the beer-slinging game that tasks players with acting as a bartender) and back to Skee-Ball.
The final round resulted in a triple-overtime clash on Blitz 99 between Six Ten and Hidden Springs. With no winner yet apparent, the head-to-head duo relocated to engage in pinball madness on the Aerosmith machine. Hidden Springs mastered the paddles to pin the win.
Now it was time to count those crucial beer points. Teams and players reflected while judges tallied up the results.
“I was a bit concerned about the quality of the player from the other breweries,” said Sam Bipps of Coppertail. “Not to mention the quality of everyone’s beer.”
Luckily, Coppertail came prepared with two solid beers, one of them being the brewery’s secret weapon: BOMP (blood orange, mango and passion fruit sour) and Brew’s Banner (double IPA exclusively released during TBBW). A smart play, Brew’s Banner is big, hoppy, malty and strong — like, 10 percent ABV strong. Drink wisely, because too many will put you into Hulk-smash mode, but I would make like Black Widow and search out this powerful DIPA.
Six Ten tapped Butterfinger CBGB (peanut butter chocolate sour) and 611 Neapolitan (strawberry, chocolate and vanilla porter). Upon sampling the Butterfinger, its tartness combined with sweet and savory confused my mouth a bit, but I think I enjoyed it.
Moon Butter (peanut butter cocoa stout) and Tee Time (Berliner Weisse with black tea and lemon zest) were on hand from Angry Chair. The latter was particularly spot on, and I can imagine sipping it before teeing off on a fine sunny day. A touch of sour on the tongue keeps the tea at bay.
Hidden Springs brought Brawndo (Gatorade Berliner), along with Kitten Kong (Teddy Graham marshmallow chocolate stout), to Battle Royale. Brawndo was the big hit of the evening — so much so that the beer sold out well before closing time. It is, after all, what plants crave.
As for 7venth Sun, which seems to never disappoint, the brewery scored the unofficial award for longest beer name ever with It Puts the Cucumber On Its Skin or It Gets the Gose Again! (cucumber gose). The crowd got a taste of Remote Viewing (IPA with peach and apricot) as well.
Two teams, Hidden Springs and Coppertail, rose to the top once the beers were tallied. Though the call was a close one — down to four points — Coppertail edged out the win, outplaying and out-beering the competition to take Battle Royale, the belt and bragging rights until next year.
The final results were Coppertail (95), Hidden Springs (91), Six Ten (85), Angry Chair (77), and 7venth Sun (67).
But were there any injuries during the showdown? CL asked Parcade owner Leonard.
“The only injuries were of ego, but the beer is there to comfort.”
This article appears in Mar 15-22, 2018.