The game features alternating rounds of play offering up a twist on player interaction and the likes of card drafting and resource management. Each card is also multi-use so you'll have to tinker with the best use for them from turn to turn. Beer & Bread gracefully dances with its artful balance of constraints and limitations. Surprisingly, the game does not feel restrictive or punitive, even when an occasional misplay occurs. Take the resources throughout both fruitful and dry seasons, for example. Granted, the fruitful is more bountiful than the dry, yet scarcity could still persist. Hence, players must strategically harvest resource. It paves the way for more substantial production down the line.

Multiuse cards? A Scott Almes’ design? 2 Player only game? Where do I sign?? Beer & Bread is filling me up like a triple layered chocolate cake!

1 Review

The game takes place over 6 years (rounds), and each year is either fruitful or dry. The year marker begins on a green spot representing the first year which is fruitful and move along until you reach the money spot. Then it’s pans and barrels down ready for scoring time.

And when Beer & Bread are produced and upgrades are installed, they will end up in our barn. While the fruitful season drifts and after the inevitable change elapses, the utilization of these cards in this season will be pivotal. Because… Windmill– When all the cards are used in either phase, it’s the windmill phase. The player with the fewest stored resources gets the windmill meeple (signifying that they will go first in the next year). Then you re-seed the fields with the required number of resources depending on whether you are moving into a fruitful or dry year. The last few turns can seem pointless if you are not able to sell any more beer or bread or play any cards that will effect final scoring. This is especially annoying if you watch your competitor play one final scoring point card on their last turn. The gameplay for Beer & Bread doesn’t look mean on the surface. You have to give extra resources up which might not sit well. But there’s a chance that you’ll be able to do it when your opponent can’t use them. And that turns a sour ale into something much more palatable!Re-playability comes from the efficiency puzzle of how best to collect and spend resources whilst keeping your beer and bread scores as close as possible. However, you see a vast majority of the cards by the end of the game so there won’t be many surprises on future play throughs. This does not stop you from wanting to play again and again. Once the 6th round is over (i.e. the 3rd fruitful year has come and gone), it’s time to find out just how much of a brewing boss and baking baron you are. And even though you tot up your totals for both beer and bread, your final position is your lowest scoring commodity. You can’t prioritise panini at the expense of porter. You can’t gun for stout and leave sourdough on the shelf. You’ve got to be busting both out to protect your position! You can look at your produced cards at any time (they are turned over for the duration of the game), but your opponent will only know whether you have produced bread and/or beer,, and how many of each.

A game called Solenia was released a few years ago which gave a very similar vibe to this but I would much rather play Beer & Bread.Each player represents one of these villages. Over the course of six years - which alternate between fruitful and dry - you must harmonize your duties of harvesting and storing resources, making beer and bread, selling them for coins and upgrading your facilities. And very, very interestingly; remember I mentioned multi-use cards right at the start? Well, beer and bread cards also serve as upgrades! So you can instead use them to give yourself continuous benefits that pay out over the course of the game as well as some end game coin boosts. Plus that triggers a clean-up phase where your completed (sold) beer and bread cards get swept off the board and placed next to you for end game scoring. I really like that twist in the tiger loaf! During the dry years the amount of resources available to be harvested is reduced but you no longer pass your cards to your opponents, so with careful planning in the fruitful years you can load up your hand with cards you know you can play during the dry years. The dry years also introduce a card exchange of three cards which you can swap cards from your hand to use immediately. How Much Is That Bread Worth In The Window One other benefit of using the upgrade option is it clears your brewery and bakery ready for more cards to be played there. The cards removed are placed to the side of the board so all players can see how many of each type you have completed. Same Game, Different Rounds