In addition to serving craft beers and café bar food, Innovation Brew Works (IBW) also hosts a variety of free events nearly every day of the week.
IBW features differents event Monday through Thursday nights and on Saturdays each week for students and local members of the community alike.
“It’s a good place for people to come during the week, during midterms especially, for students to have fun, get their minds off of school. Everybody loves the prizes, there’s free pizza – who doesn’t like free pizza? And if you’re over 21 then there’s beer,” said Joseph Thompkins, brewery student crew member and Bingo Night host.
(Nicholas Talamante | The Poly Post)
The week kicks off with Bronco Night every Monday evening from 6 to 9 p.m. For this event, if attendees wear a piece of Cal Poly Pomona or IBW gear and/or clothing, they will receive happy hour pricing all night.
This discount also includes 15% off regularly priced food orders. In addition to the savings, IBW will release a new Class Clown brew. These special brews, which are limited-time creations of their standard brews, change weekly and are available to all participants who are 21 years old and up.
Next up for Tuesday evenings, IBW hosts Bingo Night starting at 6:30 p.m. and going until 8 p.m., or whenever IBW runs out of prizes.
Prizes for all the game nights include a $25 Bronco Bucks gift card and vouchers for free pizza.
“I think these events have been pretty fun …. We are here together, playing together, and there are prizes here too,” said Alexander Arauz, a third-year aerospace engineering student and regular of IBW events since last semester.
Following bingo, Wednesdays are Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament Night. Gamers can face one another on the Nintendo Switch and battle their friends while they compete for prizes.
The tournament is open to all ages and sign-ups begin at 5:30 p.m., while the actual tournament promptly starts at 6 p.m.
“With this specific event, its casual nature has pretty much brought a lot of people in just to have fun I think,” said Mark Burgess, a fourth-year psychology student, brewery student crew member and Smash Bros. Tournament Night host. “The combination with beer behind it is always a good mixture when it comes to video games, so people come in, maybe get a little bit of a buzz and start playing games. Because it’s not as intense as a real competitive competition, people have more fun.”
Ending the weekdays, Thursdays are Trivia Night at IBW. Starting at 7 p.m., participants of all ages can team up with their friends and try their luck at pub trivia.
Lastly, Saturdays are Open Mic Night at IBW, starting at 6 p.m. on the IBW patio. According to IBW’s website, “The mission of our Open Mic Night is to use our platform to highlight our local singers, musicians, poets, comedians and any other talents.”
The turnout for these weekly events has steadily increased over the last year.
“Our most popular days are probably Trivia Night, and Bingo Night is usually pretty busy too …. Over the last year we’ve been getting a lot more attention, we’ve been having a lot more students, even people who aren’t students come in and participate,” Thompkins said.
IBW events are weekly, free and open to all ages.