Author Archives: edpmarriott
Brewery Spotlight: Karben4
Try the Silk Scorpion or the Undercover for some barley awesomeness!
If you live in the Madison, WI area and you like beer and food you should probably go check out the newest brewery in town: Karben4!
Located where the Ale Asylum used to be, on Kinsman Boulevard near the airport, they have six brews available to compliment their delicious menu items.
They don’t have a full website up yet, but you can visit the domain and learn the hours: karben4.com. Or you can learn a lot more on their Facebook page: facebook.com/Karben4. Or you can follow them on Twitter: @Karben4. And they’ve been in the local online news outfits as well. Here’s a sampling:
- Beer Baron takes over former Ale Asylum (77Square)
- New Brew at Karben4 (Madison Magazine)
- Beer Here: Silk Scorpion Black IPA from Karben4 Brewing (Isthmus Daily Page)
When I visited I tried the Undercover Session Ale and the Lady Luck Irish Red. I thought both were very enjoyable. But my favorite was the Nightcall, which is a smoked Porter. I had only previously had one smoked beer and that was a very smoky brew. The Nightcall, however, had a much more enjoyable level of smoke flavor, which was present but not overwhelming. So I sampled and enjoyed three of their six beers!
But perhaps the highlight of our evening at Karben4 was the summer sausage sandwich. I would try to explain the amount of awesomeness this sandwich brings to the table but I’ll share a picture from Karben4’s Facebook page instead. Don’t drool too much! (Disclaimer: I did not personally eat any of the sandwich, but I have a really good sense of smell and this smelled of awesomeness. My friends both thoroughly enjoyed it!)
Even if you don’t like beer, you should visit for this sandwich! (So says my level 1 friends)
So when you’re looking for something to do head over to Karben4, grab some grub and a brew, and have a great time! And don’t forget to take home a growler full of brewing delight!
BGR: Empire Builder
A game with crayons? Aren’t I too old for crayons?
Today on Boards & Barley I’m reviewing a classic game called Empire Builder!
Empire Builder is a “crayon rails” game where players try to build a network between cities such that they can deliver the goods that those cities desire. Hold your horses there big fella… did you say “Crayon” rails? Yes I sure did, kind sir.
Here’s a definition from BoardGameGeek.com for crayon rail games:
The Crayon Rail System is a subcategory of Route/Network Building. Types of these games use crayon or other non-permanent methods of making connecting lines on a board, often eraseable. The most popular Crayon Rail games are part of the Empire Builder system.
The way this game is played allows players to actually draw (as in, use a crayon to draw on the board, not as in draw a card) their train connection routes onto the game board. On your turn you will first move your “train” pawn up to the number of spaces allowed by the type of engine you control. Once you’ve moved your pawn you can then pay to add train tracks to your network. The objective of the game is to connect 6 of the 7 major cities and possess $250 million. The first player to get to that point wins.
So how do you get money? Players each have three cards. On each card are three demands. Each demand lists a city and a resource that they want. It also lists the money that city will pay if you can drop off that resource to them. Throughout the game players will be picking up resources in one city and then delivering them to another city. Each delivery gets them some cash. The tricky part of the game is to know when the best time is to start focusing on income rather than network building.
I’ve played this game about 15 times and would play it again tonight if the circumstance arose. It is a very simple game to learn in terms of mechanics. But the satisfaction one gets from fulfilling an demand on one of their cards is great!
Here’s a look at the game components (image from BoardGameGeek.com):
Notice the crayons? It’s time to color!
The Upside:
- GAME PLAY: This game is fundamentally simple to play. It is easy enough to teach to non-gamers and those I’ve taught really seem to enjoy it. There are not any hugely daunting decisions in the game that would turn people off.
- STRATEGY: I love the strategy in this game. Players have to attempt to balance building a larger network with delivering the most appropriate goods. My favorite is when I can fulfill two demand cards in the same city on the same turn!
- THEME: So some people are sick of train games. That’s fine. This isn’t as much a train game as it is a network game. That’s why the theme can work almost anywhere. There are versions of this game with maps from Australia, China, Japan, Britain, the Moon, Mars, and more! Choose your geography and start networking!
The Downside:
- COMPONENTS: Each of the resources has a stack of three or four tiny poker chips. These can really get fiddly. And the worst part is when you accidentally knock the box over. Empire Builder is one of the few games that I make certain to never set on its side!
- TIME: Beware… with 6 players this might be the only game to hit the table at a game night. It can take a long time to play since there are a lot of decisions that can’t be addressed until you draw a new demand card. I would almost recommend to keep this to 2 or 3 players.
- ARTWORK: I understand that the board needs to be white so everyone can see what color tracks people are drawing on the board. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. The artwork is one of the worst parts of the game for me.
Designer Perspective – What Would I Change:
This game has been around for a very long time (since 1980). It seems to be very well designed and I am tempted to not change anything about the game. But since this portion of the column exists I might as well make a suggestion. I would like to see different scenarios in the game including different victory conditions. Sometimes a 6 City/$250 million game can take a long time. If there were setup or start game scenarios that could guide players decisions it could make for quicker game play with less downtime. If you think this start game scenario idea would be good, check out Empire Express!
Preferred Beer Pairing:
This game can tend to roll on and on. I recommend a nice beer to sip on. One I particularly enjoy for a game like this is Anchor Steam by the Anchor Steam Brewing Company. It also helps that this is a very “American” beer and you’re building your network across the good old US of A (unless you’re playing British Rails, Lunar Rails, Martian Rails, Australian Rails, China Rails, I think you get the point). A not-too-heavy, not-too-light beer is perfect for Empire Builder!
OVERALL RATING:
Empire Builder is great. I really enjoy it for a game night where I just want to relax. It’s not overly tense. But it is a great feel-good game. Dropping a load in San Francisco never felt so good! And the crayons just make it fun. You can see your network growing as the game progresses and there’s something neat about that. I’ll rate this as a 8 out of 10 according to the BoardGameGeek rating system:
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Very good game. I like to play it. Probably I’ll suggest it and will never turn down a game.
Eminent Domain: Escalation on Kickstarter
Publishers of Awesomeness!
One of my favorite game publishing companies is Tasty Minstrel Games. Why are they one of my favorites? I have two reasons:
- They publish awesome games including Homesteaders, Kings of Air and Steam, Ground Floor, Village, Noblemen, Belfort, and the topic of this post: Eminent Domain.
- They are very open and engaging about their business and they share a lot of awesome information about the board game publishing side of things. Check out Michael Mindes’ “BizOfPlay” Podcast on Soundcloud.com.
For those reasons I don’t hesitate when they launch a new project on Kickstarter. I know that their game developer, Seth Jaffee, will have done an amazing job making sure the game is refined and awesome. But most importantly, TMG’s games are fun to play!
So today I wanted to inform you about their latest Kickstarter campaign which is currently live. It is for the expansion for Eminent Domain. It is called Eminent Domain: Escalation (ED:E). It is the first expansion for the hit game.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game here is a little background. Eminent Domain is a deck-building game with a space-based theme. Players are trying to settle the most planets, research the most technology, and gain the most influence. Each turn you choose a card from your hand and do the action listed. These actions are things like Gain a Fighter, Colonize a Planet, Survey New Planets, and Research Technology. After performing the action the player will take a card from one of the piles on the table. They then perform the Role of that card. These roles allow the player whose turn it is to reap some benefit. Then all the other players can “follow” by doing the role or “dissent” by drawing a card into their hand. That’s basically how a turn works. To learn more check out Tom Vasel’s review of the game:
I really enjoy this game. I first played it last year in the GenCon library. This expansion looks like it will really add to the game. It adds the capability for a 5th player. It allows for direct conflict. It adds new technology cards. And it will add different starting scenarios, which adds a lot of flavor and replayability.
I highly recommend backing the game on Kickstarter. You can back the game and expansion for $50 or if you already own the game you can back the expansion for $25. Please let me know if you have any questions about the game or TMG. If I can’t answer them I’ll point you in the right direction. You can pledge on the Kickstarter project page!
What You Might Not Know About Beer
My wife uses Pinterest and every once in a while she finds something that might be of interest to me. Since what she shared with me is interesting and relevant to this site I am posting it here. You can find the original over at visual.ly.
If you plan to consume any beverages of the beer variety tomorrow during Table Top Day, pull out one of these tasty little morsels of info to impress your friends! Check this out:
200th Twitter Follower Giveaway!
Love Letter cover image from BoardGameGeek.com
Yesterday I got to 200 followers on Twitter! So to express my gratitude and share the love I’ll be purchasing a copy of Love Letter to send to one lucky follower!
Here’s how it will work. I’ll tweet about this article. To be eligible to win Love Letter all you have to do is favorite the tweet and be located in the continental US. I will randomly choose one eligible lucky winner from the list of people who favorited the tweet. Pretty simple!
Once the winner is chosen I will send a direct message to obtain the shipping address. The game will come directly from the online game store.
Thanks to everyone who follows me! Hopefully some day I’ll be able to give a published game of my own design as a giveaway prize! Don’t forget to favorite the tweet!
UPDATE: I’ll choose a winner at 8pm tonight (central)
UPDATE: You can favorite the tweet here instead of scrolling through my tweets to find the right one:
Boards and Barley 