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Two player only games have become one of my go to purchases of late. There are some amazing examples such as 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork, Lost Cities, Hanamikoji, and Mandala. I could do a whole blog about all of the great two player only games. They normally tend to be a bit lighter on the complexity but every so often a two player game dares to dip its toes into the murky waters of the Euro style game. Beer & Bread from designer Scott Almes certainly looks like a Euro but does it play like one and is it any good? Read on to find out.
I Will Get The Next Round
The game is actually a lot easier than you would expect after your first glance. Essentially you will play cards from your hand one at a time to either harvest resources from the fields, sell resources for points, or upgrade your actions. You play five cards per year and the game ends after the sixth year, so that will be thirty turns in total.
All of the cards in the game have three uses. The top third of the card is used for harvesting, the middle of the card is used for recipes to sell beer and bread and the bottom third is used for upgrades.
Happy Harvest
When you use a card for harvesting you place it face up in front of you. You then collect the resources along the top of the card and place them in your storage. If you play another card on top of this first one you place it so that the resources of the first card are still visible. You then collect all of the resources on the new card and also of any of the previously played cards resources if they match the new card.
Positive player interaction is quickly becoming one of my favourite gaming mechanisms and this game continues the trend. When you harvest resources if you do not have enough room for them you must offer the overflow to your opponent (you may switch out your own resources first). They must then decide if they want them and if they do they must consider their storage availability (they cannot take them if they have no room and they are not allowed to switch out their resources at this point).
Selling Your Wares
To sell a recipe you must have all of the available resources ready in your storage. You then place the card face down on either the brewery (for beer) or the bakery (for bread). These spots are then occupied until cleared or you upgrade your abilities to hold more than one card.
It’s Time To Upgrade
When you use the upgrade function you slide the card under the player board at the equivalent space for the upgrade.
All of the upgrades serve useful purposes from increasing the amount you can store, getting bonus resources when you harvest, bonus points at the end of the game, getting bonus resources when you clear your brewery and bakery, etc. There are so many upgrades that I couldn’t mention them all here, thankfully at the back of the rule book there is a full list of upgrades and how they work.
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
The first, third and fifth rounds are called fruitful years during which more resources will be available to be harvested from the fields and after you have played a card you pass the remainder of your cards to your opponent face down. They then play a card from their hand and pass the remainder of their cards to you. This type of drafting mechanism has been used in many other games but never before have I been so sad to see my perfect cards passed to an opponent. Two emotions could then follow being either the sheer joy of seeing the card come back to you or the horror of watching your opponent play the card you wanted back so desperately.
The other benefit of the fruitful years is any cards you play to harvest resources will come back to your hand in the next year (called the dry years which are years two, four and six).
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
Throughout the game of Beer & Bread, you will be selling your resources to make the best beer and bread. But you cannot let one be better than the other as your final score is your lowest scoring beer or bread total. So, if your total score for bread was twenty three and your total score for beer was twenty eight, your final score would be twenty three. Quite a few other games (especially from Reiner Knizia) have used this mechanism to great effect and it is one I like as it makes you balance your efficiencies for all of your scoring opportunities.
Look At The Rise On That
The components included in Beer & Bread are excellent from the beautifully illustrated game board and cards to the cute resources and first player token. The artwork feels like it has been taken from a game that came out a few years ago. This is not a complaint as I really like the artwork by Michael Menzel, but just an observation that this looks like a Uwe Rosenburg classic.
The Rule Book is clear and concise and gives good examples of all of the possible actions. I only tripped up on one rule (Harvest & Store) but with a quick re-read I was ready to go.
No Soggy Bottom Here
Apologies as I have a lot of final thoughts for this two player game.
One of my favourite mechanisms in games is engine building. Beer & Bread allows you to build your engine very quickly and easily but that could be to your downfall because there is nothing worse than having a storage full of resources when your opponent has an overflow. At this point you are not allowed to ‘sort’ your resources. Very frustrating when they are offering exactly what you needed.
Everything in this game screams resource / card management from the limited storage to the upgrade spots. A great example is how the sold beer & bread cards remain at either the brewery or bakery until you do the upgrade option at which point they are cleared from the board and you can sell more goods again.
It is very unusual but also quite clever designing a game with two different turn structures depending on whether it is a fruitful year or dry year. Very careful planning in the fruitful year can pay big dividends as the cards you play in your harvest will come back to you in the dry spell.
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.
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.
Overall I really like Beer & Bread and look forward to teaching it to as many people as possible. The turn structures are fun and the limited space for resources make you think as efficiently as possible whilst trying to plan for future turns. I would have liked a solo mode but I can understand it might have been too fiddly to implement.
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.
At the end of the game you feel like your brain has had a good work out similar to playing a Euro style game but you will be pleased and surprised to find you have only been playing for 30 minutes.
One final drink for the road.
That concludes our thoughts on Beer & Bread. Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy Beer & Bread today click here!
