Tapper
- Brand
- Budweiser
- Year
- 1984
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- Bally Midway
- Added
- October 2026
- 1
Set in a bar made up to look real, with a brass footrail, brass cup holders/ashtrays flanking the controls, and a tap handle in place of a button; the player drops a coin, picks one-player or two-player-alternating, and faces four stacked horizontal bar counters with a keg at the player's end of each and a door at the far end.
- 2
The core loop: pulling the tap handle sends the bartender to fill a mug, releasing it sends the mug sliding down the counter to the approaching patron, who catches it and gets knocked back toward the door (and out, if close enough) or stops to drink and pushes the empty mug back.
- 3
The player moves the bartender up/down between counters (which wrap top-to-bottom) and left/right along the current counter, racing to catch empty mugs before they fall off the keg end and to serve patrons before they reach the keg end and drag the bartender off, while also catching full mugs before they smash at the door end.
- 4
Patrons occasionally leave tips on the counter; collecting one for bonus points brings out dancers who distract some patrons into standing still (unable to walk but also unable to catch mugs), while patrons mid-drink or mid-return are unaffected.
- 5
Clearing a bar means serving every patron until the counters are empty, closed out by a comic animation of the bartender pouring himself a drink and getting a mug stuck on his head.
- 6
A bonus round follows each cleared bar: six cans are set out, a masked figure shuffles five of them, and the player picks one, winning points for guessing the unshuffled can or getting a drink sprayed in the face for a wrong guess (with the correct can briefly lit up).
- 7
The setting and clientele change as the player advances: a cowboy saloon (2 screens), a sports bar (3 screens), a punk bar (4 screens), and an alien space bar (4 screens).
- 8
Each stage raises the pressure with more frequent, faster patrons, shorter knockback distances, and up to four patrons per counter at once; after the alien bar the player loops back to the saloon at a higher difficulty, with no ending — play continues until the player runs out of lives.
- 9
The soundtrack mixes a Budweiser jingle with period tunes "Oh! Susanna," "Buffalo Gals," and Offenbach's "Galop Infernal," reinforcing the Budweiser branding seen on the back-wall logo and the mugs themselves.
Objective
Anheuser-Busch wanted Budweiser inside the place people actually drank it, not just advertised near it: an arcade cabinet built for bars and taverns where the patron playing the game became the bartender pouring Budweiser. Bally Midway had its own stake in the deal, using the bar-styled cabinet to sell operators on a new venue class beyond kids' arcades.
Solution
The player stands behind a bar that stretches across four lanes, a keg at their end and a door at the far end under a Budweiser sign on the back wall. Pulling the tap handle sends a full mug sliding down a lane to a thirsty patron, who gets knocked back, downs it, and slides the empty mug back for the player to catch before it flies off the counter. A life is lost if a mug breaks, if a full mug reaches the door untouched, or if a patron reaches the bar and throws the player out; clearing a round moves the player to a new themed bar — a cowboy saloon, a sports bar, a punk club, an alien space bar — with a bonus round guessing which can of soda hasn't been shaken in between.
Results
- #1
- top-earning table arcade unit
- 3.3K
- upright cabinets built
In Japan, Game Machine ranked it the top-earning table arcade unit of March 1984, tied with 10-Yard Fight and Vs. Tennis. Bally Midway built roughly 3,300 upright and 300 cocktail cabinets.
Can you still play it?
You can't buy or officially play the original Budweiser Tapper today: every authorised re-release, including Midway Arcade Treasures, Xbox Live Arcade (2007–2010) and Midway Arcade Origins, used Root Beer Tapper, the re-themed version made because the original was seen as advertising alcohol to minors. The Budweiser original survives in an in-browser emulated copy on the Internet Archive and in collectors' cabinets.
