How Pabst Blue Ribbon Came Up With the Perfect Arcade Game for Your Favorite Bar

Pabst Blue Ribbon wants you to put your bartending skills to the test with its new Perfect Pour arcade game.

The San Antonio, TX-based beer company has recently started rolling out these arcade games to bars nationwide. The objective is simple: Can you handle a game day rush or the after-work crowd?

The arcade game, created by DSM Arcade founder and designer Dan Fessler, puts fans behind the bar and tests their ability to pour the perfect beer. No spillage!

How The Perfect Pour Works

Fans use joystick controls that function like real tap handles. It starts easy, but then things get bonkers, with customers lining up as players juggle multiple taps. Like any good arcade game, there are obstacles. In this case, blown kegs, pitcher requests, half pours, and picky customers are aspects bartenders must deal with every single day on any given busy night.

The Bar-Inspired Game

Fessler came up with the idea for the game while watching a bartender in action during a busy shift at a local bar in Des Moines, Iowa.

"I came up with the idea for Perfect Pour while watching a bartender rush back and forth across a wall of taps during happy hour," Fessler tells Men's Journal. "It was frantic and fast, but also precise and controlled. The best bartenders make it look effortless. It was a real lightbulb moment."

Fessler wanted to recreate the pressure bartenders face every day, "so players could step behind the bar and see what it's really like."

The buzz triggered an idea that soon materialized.

"Sitting there with my beer, I realized that pouring beer could be a great gameplay mechanic," he said. "I sketched out a few concepts, and shortly after that, a talented developer helped us turn the idea into an early alpha."

The Perfect Pour arcade game features vintage-style cabinet art with Pabst branding, all-new HD graphics and effects, and a redesigned cabinet profile that delivers a timeless arcade feel.

"Bartenders are the real heroes of the industry. Perfect Pour gives people a fun glimpse into how hard bar work actually is," said Kat Mata, Pabst's Director of Culture Marketing. "The fact that it came from an indie developer and was dreamed up in a bar makes it feel even more authentic, and we’re proud to put the Blue Ribbon on it."

The Perfect Pour is already a massive hit.

"Need one in ATL, fell in love with it in Jacksonville, and have been waiting ever since!" commented one fan in a recent Pabst Blue Ribbon Instagram post. Another added, "No, but seriously, you couldn't tear me away from this if there was a cabinet at my local bar."