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By: Kim and Devin
July 14, 2023
Beer & Bread is a multi-use card game with resource management and card drafting for 2 players! You and your opponent are from adjacent villages and share crops, but each of you are still trying to brew and bake the best beer and bread.
Overview
The game takes place over 6 rounds (or years) which will alternate between fruitful and dry. In fruitful years, there will be more crops available to gather whereas in dry years, there will be fewer crops available. At the end of the game, players will tally up the total points earned from beer and bread separately, and the twist is that a player’s final score is the lowest of the two sums. This forces players to diversify their production to ensure an even score!
To start the game, pick the first player, give them the windmill token, and deal them 5 cards from the deck. The second player will then also take 5 cards. Then, seed each field according to the numbers in the field space corresponding to the current year type.
On a player’s turn, they will play a card either for its upgrade listed at the bottom of the card, to harvest the resources at the top of the card, or to brew/bake it by paying the needed resources in the middle section of the card.
In fruitful years, after both players have played a card on their turn, they will give their hand of cards to the other player and each of them will take turns playing another card. They will continue switching hands and playing cards until all the cards in hand have been played.
In dry years, players don’t exchange their hands of cards after playing, but they may instead exchange a card in hand with a card in the exchange row to play it instead. The exchange row contains 3 cards, and it is only present during the dry years.
At the end of the round, move the round marker forward one space and give the first player marker to the player with the fewest resources. Then the next round begins, with some special rules to follow depending on whether the next year is dry or fruitful. At the start of a fruitful year, players will discard any cards they played for resources and all cards from the exchange row. At the start of a dry year, players will pick up the cards they played for resources in the prior year before drawing up to their hand of 5, and 3 cards are dealt out to the exchange row.
Thoughts
🔴Kim🔴
When I first saw Beer & Bread I couldn’t help but think of Heaven and Ale, which is one of my favorite games, so I was very eager to see how this game played.
In Beer & Bread there are so many options available with each card, and with the addition of the fruitful and dry year mechanics there is so much to think about. Do I play this card to harvest resources in a fruitful year so I can have it in my hand for the upcoming dry year to play again, or do I use it for its useful upgrade? The addition of drafting cards with your opponent in the fruitful years always keeps you looking at what your opponent might need.
Since your end game score is the lowest of the two sums for the beer and bread that you make you really need to make sure that you are balancing the number of each type of card you are making throughout the game.
Beer & Bread has quickly become my favorite 2-player game as it offers so much strategy in a small box with a relatively quick playtime of 40 minutes.
🟣Devin🟣
Like Kim, I was excited for Beer & Bread based on its theme and some mechanical similarities to Heaven & Ale (earn points in multiple categories, but only score your lowest category). That’s about as far as the similarities go, but I really enjoyed everything this brought to the table.
The game moves quickly, and there is always a feeling that you need to work harder to maximize the efficiency of your actions. Your resource storage is limited, and most of the high-scoring beer & bread cards require a large amount of very specific resources. In fruitful years, you’ll find yourself looking at your opponent’s resources and checking them against your hand to see if there is a card they could immediately make when you trade hands. Similarly, in dry years, you’ll often look to the exchange row to see what your opponent could make from it, or you’ll check your own hand before exchanging a card to try and limit your opponent’s opportunities.
It can be a difficult balance sometimes - you don’t want to help your opponent earn points, but sometimes you really need to take a particular action that ends up helping them. As an example, if you ever generate more resources than you can store, you can exchange what you have in storage, and then you must offer the overflow to your opponent before discarding it. This could mean that you have to consider the benefits of playing a card for resources you really need against the bonuses you might give your opponent if your storage is currently full.
The upgrades on each card are another aspect you’ll be watching. A card you may want to brew/bake/use for resources may have an upgrade that would give you a huge boost. Upgrades could do a variety of things, such as help generate more resources or provide an additional end-game scoring pathway for whoever plays it. These end-game scoring opportunities usually provide bonuses for collecting certain sets (e.g., one of each type of beer, multiple cards worth 4 or 5 points, etc.), or other unique conditions such as having more upgrades than your opponent. Playing a card as an upgrade is also the only way to clear the brewed beer and baked bread from your play area to make way for more products!
The components are nice, the art is pleasant, and setup is a breeze. Getting this to the table is easy, and the quick play time makes it possible for us to play on weeknights when we don’t usually have a lot of free time.
Overall, the game feels like a very neat, extremely tight puzzle to figure out. While long-term strategy is possible, and at least somewhat required as you generate resources with plans for future turns, you’re often forced to adapt when your opponent plays a card that you were really counting on or takes the last available resource of a type for the year. Beer & Bread may have taken over as my favorite 2-player only board game (sorry, 7 Wonders Duel)! I really like the indirect interactivity between players. You aren’t messing with each other’s completed products or stored resources, but all of the card movement makes for a game where you are always interested in what’s happening and the current state of the game.
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