A brewpub in SoHo is offering a finite amount of free beer for a year, in exchange for a lifetime of commitment.
On Friday, Manhattan’s Torch & Crown Brewing Company is launching a diehard members’ program: Get the company’s logo permanently tattooed on your body and receive a monthly case of beer and up to two standard draft pours per visit.
To encourage participation, the brewery is offering free tattoos at a Friday event at their SoHo brewpub, in an event they call “Bat Flip Day.”
“By participating, you agree to be a human billboard for Torch & Crown Brewing Co. for the rest of your life,” the brewery announced in an Instagram post last week. The brewery, which is named for Lady Liberty’s accoutrements, calls its Eternal Flame Club “the boldest loyalty program in hospitality.”
The company said the deal ends after the 2025 World Series, which is slated for October. (“But your commitment? That’s forever!” it said on Instagram.)
Photo by Jenna Bascom / Courtesy of Torch & Crown
The very real, very permanent marketing gimmick is part of Torch & Crown’s annual Bat Flip Day, a salute to the brewery’s Bat Flip Spring Ale, named after the baseball term for throwing a bat in the air after hitting a home run and before running to first base. Though the practice is frowned upon in the states, it is considered an accepted celebratory gesture in Korea.
The idea for Bat Flip beer was born during peak COVID-19, shortly before Torch & Crown opened on a SoHo side street in October 2020.
“Our team is a bunch of compulsive gamblers and we had to find some sports we could gamble on and we settled on the only pro sports league globally that was still up and running in the early days of the pandemic: The Korean Baseball League,” explained Torch & Crown CEO John Dantzler, who co-founded the company with his childhood friend Joe Correia.
The pair, Dantzler said, were first inspired to make beer together in high school, after their fake IDs were confiscated at an East Village bar.
“It pretty quickly went from just a couple underage idiots to a passion,” said Dantzler. “Granted, we’re still idiots.”
“This whole Bat Flip Beer, it’s really just about excessive celebration and getting a little nuts. So we wanted a little loyalty program that matched that vibe,” said Dantzler, who has no tattoos of his own.
Torch & Crown is offering free tattoos in these designs for a select few fans.
Courtesy Torch & Crowns
Customers are game for the idea: All 15 slots to get the logo tattooed on-site this Friday have already been booked.
Dantzler said he was still surprised by the response.
“I wasn’t sure if one person would do it,” he said.
Friday’s event kicks off at noon and continues until 11 p.m. at Torch & Crown’s location on 12 Vandam St.
Tickets to “Bat Flip Day” are around $18 and include a souvenir plastic bat, a 20-ounce Bat Flip pour, a hot dog with all the fixings and on-site, pre-designed tattoos from Uplift Tattoo Studio. While spots for Torch & Crown’s logo are all booked, tattoo artists will be inking other designs, including baseball caps and hot dogs.
