How HQ is Celebrating Our Best Beercade Win…

We’re not into the whole over-the-top bragging thing, but it’s not every day that you’re voted “Best Beercade in the city” by Chicago Magazine. Yes, we know it happened a few weeks ago, but its still fresh in our minds, especially because Chicago Magazine is honoring all the “Best Of” winners tonight with a blow-out bash. Like any great party, we couldn’t show up empty-handed. We’re delivering six of our best arcade games (Mrs. Pac-Man, Galaga, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Area 51 and NFL Blitz) to show the party’s attendees how it’s done!

Ready to take us on? #GameOn

Host Your Fantasy Football Draft at HQ!

Because we’re a beercade, we’re pretty used to spending most of our days in a craft beer-induced fantasy land, so hosting a fantasy football draft wasn’t much of a leap. Like everything at HQ, we’re going big or going home so here are the rules for your Headquarters fantasy draft – the Shiva bowl is so close we can taste it…

RULE #1 – Friends Let Friends Make Crappy Picks: Did your opponent miss the latest ESPN news break that his favorite player got injured? This is a competition, not a boy scout meeting so keep those prime facts to yourself and watch him cry like a little girl as he figures it out.

RULE #2 – Pay Attention to Busts: Take your heads out of the gutter: We’re talking about those injury-prone and head-not-in-the-game players who you know won’t go far next season. Pay attention during the off-season so you don’t end up with the ‘sacko’! The draft is just beginning – keep up with the score all season long with NFL Redzone (also at HQ)!

RULE #3 – Choose Your Commissioner Very Wisely: Aside from choosing your favorite craft brew, your league’s commissioner is the most important choice you can make. The commissioner is responsible for keeping the league in order, so try to avoid that friend who is always short on cash when it comes time to pay the drink bill – and that guy who ‘accidentally’ set his girlfriends’ house on fire? Yeah, he’s out too. HQ has free pizza and draft boards for every team – does your commissioner’s basement have that??

RULE #4 – Drafts Need Crafts: The most important rule on this list, and the real reason why HQ is the best place for your draft: You can order a different craft beer for every pick. Give these men the honor they deserve with a proper cheers every five minutes. Fantasy football or not, the brews are always real.

Are you ready to spend football season at HQ? Email Brandon@capacitybars.com for more information and tell us about your league on Facebook and Twitter! #GameOn

Instagram Recap: HQ is Ready for a Takeover

What a week! After giving away our personal tickets in an epic Lollapalooza contest (over 2,000 shares – you guys are amazing!), kicked off the weekend with an IPA Fest featuring Lagunitas vs. Sixpoint! To top it off, we added the highly-requested AC/DC game to the Pincade – chyeah, that’s music to our ears! We’ve never been more ready for the weekend, and we’re prepared to throw-down every night. Make Headquarters your real HQ for an authentic Chicago experience – besides our craft brews, nothing about us is canned! #GameOn

What Makes an IPA So Special?

Simply put, there are a LOT of great beers out there. So much so that it’s sometimes hard to keep track of what makes a good beer so I-can’t-stop-drinking-good. Since tomorrow is National IPA Day, we thought we’d break down what makes an IPA such a craft classic, and how to spot the best of the brews:

• An IPA is most recognizable by its lighter coloring, due to less smoking and roasting of barley in the malting process. Which means more hops for people like us.
  
• In the 19th century, ‘October beers’, as IPAs were then called, were heavily exported to India. The strongly hopped pale ale became a huge success overseas, leading to the name change.
• There IS a difference between East and West. East Coast IPA’s demonstrate a stronger malt presence while West Coast IPAs let the hops shine through.
• And those “imperial IPAs”? Those are the big guns. Stronger and hoppier, they rock an alcohol content above 7.5% – probably why it’s our favorite.

Head on down to HQ tomorrow night to celebrate with us! #GameOn

We’re Celebrating National IPA Day at Headquarters!

We’re all for the holidays – St. Patty’s Day is great and Christmas is nice, but National IPA Day? Now, that’s a holiday we can appreciate! This year, the holy day falls on Thursday, August 1st and we’re celebrating it in a very special way. Two of our favorite breweries from either coast, Six Point from the East and Lagunitas from the West, are coming to HQ for a night of dueling and sampling! All IPA’s will have special pricing, and both breweries are bringing a very special new draft; Lagunitas is bringing its Maximus, described as an “IPA on steroids” and Six Point is bringing its Galaxy Hopped Spice of Life, part of their ongoing series using a different hop strain each month!

We’re pretty excited to try these new brews and we’ll be giving away plenty of free swag – see you there to help us celebrate #NationalIPADay the HQ way! #GameOn

Capacity Bar Group is Taking Over Taste of Lincoln Avenue

Remember when we told you our plan for total world domination? You may not, but we were serious and we’re starting our bid for the globe by taking over the Taste of Lincoln Avenue street fest this Saturday and Sunday. We’re executing a three-point attack with over 35 arcade and pinball games, eight craft beer specialties and the perfect music lineup including a very special performance from Shiny Toy Guns! We are the only place you’ll find craft beer and arcade games at the festival, so we’ll be hard to miss!

Not to get you too excited, but we’ll also be revealing some exciting new information about our next CBG venture – you won’t want to miss it!

The party will continue Sunday night at HQ with the Official After Party with a Shiny Toy Guns DJ set featuring Greg Corner! Let’s make this weekend count, alright? #GameOn

Just Tapped: The Best Drafts in the Beercade

When we first conceived of the idea for Headquarters, one of the things we knew we HAD to implement was a rotating craft beer list highlighting the best drafts from local and national craft breweries. We are constantly amazed at how quickly our kegs are tapped but it’s just proof that we know what you guys like to drink! Here are some of the best beers we have on tap right now; get ’em before they’re gone:

• Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest: The southern counterpart to SN’s Harvest Ale, this beer features fresh hops picked, dried and shipped from New Zealand within seven days of harvest. Herbal, floral and delightfully hoppy, this is one brew we’ll be drinking all summer long.
• Bear Republic Racer 5: This IPA feels like the wind whipping through your hair on a curvy racecourse. Full-bodied and brewed with American pale and crystal malts, we expect this brew to speed out as fast as it came in (that’s our last race car pun, we swear).
• Two Brothers French Press: This just-released specialty brew features Two Brother’s Domaine Dupage infused with coffee. Infused. With. Coffee. It’s exactly what we need on a Monday night after a hard day at work – or a Monday morning after a long night out (we’re not telling…)!

What brews do you want to see on draft? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter and we will try to get them for you! #GameOn

In It to Win It: Lollapalooza Ticket Contest

The best part about summer in Chicago? Aside from outdoor BBQs, lighter and smoother IPAs, and bikinis, it’s gotta be the music festivals! Whatever your style, there’s somewhere to go and someone to listen to, which is why we love the mega-fest Lollapalooza. In fact, we dig it so much that we’re giving away a pair of VIP tickets for the day of your choice on Facebook! All you have to do is LIKE the HQ Chicago fan page and SHARE the above photo to enter and on Friday, July 26th a winner will be chosen at random – sounds like a pretty sweet deal to us!

What bands are you most excited to see on the Lolla stages? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter! #GameOn

What the Pitchfork Chicago Lineup Will Be Drinking

Hopefully you’re spending this weekend jamming out at the Pitchfork music festival, but if not, then we put together this handy guide. After all, listening to each of the headliners deserves a pairing with a spot-on brew… preferably at Headquarters, where all of these incredible crafts are on draft…

If you’re listening to Björk, you should be drinking a Revolution Brewing Dictator: Björk’s tunes are meant to be listened to, not simply heard. Likewise, the brand new Dictator is meant to be savored rather than sipped. Full of depth, not easily accessible to the public (aka PBR and Katy Perry), and delightfully bitter, these two always go down smooth!

If you’re listening to R.Kelly, you should be drinking a Brooklyn Brewing Scorcher: This PA is known for it’s ‘wild’ hops – it endured several different transformations before ending up here, just like a certain “Trapped in a Closet” singer. Snappy, summer-y and ready to burst, we could easily be describing either half of this amazing pair.

If you’re listening to Belle & Sebastian, you should be drinking an Ale Syndicate Municipal IPA: The Municipal takes familiar IPA elements and twists them up to create something classic and unique at the same time. Likewise, B&S have all the indie cred but they deliver their sound with a different flair. We’re all about listening to good, mellow tunes with a tangy and refreshing brew.

Are you heading to Pitchfork this weekend? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter! #GameOn

Cocktail Spotlight: Assault & Pepper

Quite a few establishments can whip up a delicious margarita (Mario’s Limoncello version comes to mind as one of our local favorites), but we had a little something different in mind when we created the Assault & Pepper. The first task: identifying the perfect tequila. After some trial and error, we decided to get a little crafty and infuse our own blend with fresh strawberries and spicy jalapeños. Whoa. We couldn’t stop there, so we created a delicious citrus chili salt to play off the unique flavors in the drink. Now, we see people licking the rim of the glass before even taking a sip. That, friends, is what we call success.

Treat yourself to one (or a dozen) tonight at HQ and let us know what you think on Facebook & Twitter! #DrinkOn #GameOn