Welcome back to Boards & Barley! If you’re new here, have a look around. I post about homebrewing and board game design. Feel free to leave comments anywhere you please.

Each Monday I blog about the beer (Barley) and board games (Boards) that I’ve enjoyed over the last week. Sometimes I also post about my recent design efforts as well. Today will be my last blog post of the year so I’ll try to make it at least slightly interesting. To accomplish that I wanted to share this awesome tweet of Scoville in the wild:

Pretty exciting! For those who don’t know, Scoville is my first published game and will be hitting retail stores in January. Kickstarter backers are beginning to receive their copies (at least in the EU). I can’t wait to hear what people think about it. Now, let’s move on to the Barley…

The Barley:

Delightful!

BARLEY SPOTLIGHT:
Central Waters Brewers Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout

I had this twice over the last few weeks and it was awesome. Many bourbon barrel beers are overwhelmed by the bourbon characteristics. That often makes it feel like you are drinking bourbon instead of beer. This one, however, had a perfect balance of bourbon and beer. The bourbon character was present but it partnered with the beer rather than drowning it. Central Waters created a wonderful brew with this one and I’m looking forward to having another.

• New Glarus Apple Ale
• Point Brewery St. Benedict’s Winter Ale
• Brouwerij Palm Amber
• Lakefront Brewery My Turn #010 Andy Pub Ale
• Tyranena The Devil Made Me Do It Imperial Oatmeal Coffee Stout
• Oskar Blues Old Chub Scotch Ale
• Pearl Street Brewery Java Lava
• Brasserie Caracole Saxo
• Coronado Brewing Hoppy Daze
• Chimay Rouge (Red) Belgian Dubbel
• Wisconsin Brewing #003 Brown & Robust Porter
• Capital Brewery Winter Skal

If you’d like to follow along with my Barley consumption, find my profile on UnTappd (Username: EdPMarriott).

The Boards:

Cover art is a little weird but the game is quite fun.

BOARDS SPOTLIGHT:
Maharani

The theme is a little weird and the box cover probably wouldn’t draw me in at a game store, but the gameplay itself is fun. You basically draw and place a tile on the board. But the locations of the tiles you choose are different from your opponents. This is because the tile selector in the middle of the board physically rotates. And the region from which you draw a tile matters. The tiles are placed to earn points by connecting like colors together, or using your meeples to score. I had fun and I definitely want to play it again.

• Yardmaster x2
• Kings of Air and Steam
• Hungry Hungry Hippos x48 – Christmas present for my kids. Only to be played when the littlest one isn’t napping.
• Gone Fishin x10 – Easier than when I was a kid since the fishing poles are solid rather than a ball hanging on a string.
• Eat Poop, You Cat! x2
• New Bedford – Bummer about the canceled Kickstarter since it’s a solid and fun game.