If you're looking to procrastinate on this beautiful Friday afternoon, you're in luck...I have tons of pictures of glorious pinball machines (and beer) for you to check out. Stop 3 on the Fall Arcade Road Trip (TM) was my favorite brewery in the World, Helicon. Residing just outside of Pittsburgh in Oakdale, PA, Helicon is a slice of heaven for someone like myself...delicious beer surrounded by the best collection of pinball machines that I have ever seen at a brewery. Helicon's owner Chris Brunetti has truly put together a top-notch establishment. The place is super clean, has amazing beers on tap with cool bartenders, has super neat brewery decor and the pins, Oh the pins.
Helicon's pinball machines are in fantastic shape and they have so many Limited Editions. Helicon has even more LEs than Brooklyn NY's iconic Sunshine Laundromat speakeasy (which sadly has still not reopened). Aerosmith LE, Batman 66 LE, Ghostbusters LE, Halloween Collectors Edition, Led Zepplin LE, Mustang LE, X-Men Wolverine LE, Wizard of Oz 75th Anniversary Edition, Stranger Things LE. Crazy. Every new pin that comes out seems to end up at Helicon. When I visited there last summer, they had a Mandalorian Limited Edition on site right after it came out and this time they had a Stern Godzilla Limited Edition on the floor. And all of the pins were working great when I was there. JJP Guns & Roses went down and someone was instantly on it fixing it. The only game that I recall not working off of the top of my head was Heighway Pinball's Full Throttle...and that doesn't count because its natural state is broken.
After getting a late start due to alarm technical difficulties and beer consumption, Rob and I spent the morning at the Kickback Pinball Cafe (see the previous review here):
We went straight from Kickback to Helicon, arriving there at around 6 PM or so on Friday. Friday night is league night. It's not as easy to take pictures when there's so many people around, but on the plus side we got to meet and hang out with a lot of super cool people. Since we headed straight to Helicon, we never bothered to pick up dinner. Skipping meals to play pinball was sort of the theme of this trip LOL. We ended up each eating a bag of Dirty Potato Chips at like 9 PM...and consuming much beer. I wanted to try every beer that Helicon had on tap that evening but I ended up deciding that discretion is the better part of valor if I wanted to be in decent shape the next day and finished one beer short.
Here's Helicon's current pinball lineup, courtesy of Pinball Map:
AC/DC (Premium) (Stern, 2012)
Aerosmith (LE) (Stern, 2017)
Attack From Mars (Remake) (Special Edition) (Chicago Gaming, 2017)
Avengers: Infinity Quest (Pro) (Stern, 2020)
Batman 66 (LE) (Stern, 2016)
Beatles (Stern, 2018)
Dirty Harry (Williams, 1995)
Doctor Who (Bally, 1992)
Freedom (SS) (Bally, 1976)
Full Throttle (Heighway Pinball, 2015)
Ghostbusters (LE) (Stern, 2016)
Godzilla (Pro) (Stern, 2021)
Guns 'N Roses (Data East, 1994)
Guns N' Roses (Standard Edition) (Jersey Jack, 2020)
Halloween (CE) (Spooky, 2021)
Iron Man (Stern, 2010)
The Jetsons (Spooky Pinball, 2017)
Jokerz (Williams, 1988)
Jurassic Park (Pro) (Stern, 2019)
Led Zeppelin (LE) (Stern, 2020)
The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot (Williams, 1991)
The Mandalorian (Pro) (Stern, 2021)
Medieval Madness (Remake Royal Edition) (Chicago Gaming, 2015)
Mustang (LE) (Stern, 2014)
Pirates of the Caribbean (LE) (Jersey Jack, 2018)
Pro-Football (Gottlieb, 1973)
Rick and Morty (Spooky, 2019)
Robo-War (Gottlieb, 1988)
Spring Break (Gottlieb, 1987)
Star Trek (Pro) (Stern, 2013)
Star Wars (Pro) (Stern, 2017)
Stardust (Williams, 1971)
Stranger Things (LE) (Stern, 2019)
Surf Champ (Gottlieb, 1976)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Pro) (Stern, 2020)
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (LE) (Jersey Jack, 2019)
The Wizard of Oz (75th Anniversary) (Jersey Jack, 2013)
Wrestlemania (Stern, 2015)
X-Men Wolverine (LE) (Stern, 2012)
Below are a short video of the place and my usual ton of pictures. There's actually a funny story behind the video. After having several beers I accidentally filmed the walk-though in Slow Motion and spent the next fifteen minutes grumbling to myself and trying to figure out how to Un-Slow-Mo it. Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend everyone. The write-ups for stops 4 and 5 of the trip are coming next week and man they are two super cool places so make sure to stop by KnappArcade.org or the Facebook Group often to check them out.