Category Archives: Monday Brews
Monday Brews: 9-23-13
Good Monday to all of you! I hope you had a great weekend. I had a very nice weekend. I got a few games in, attended a football game, and came up with a new game design that I’m pretty excited about and am hoping to get ready for Protospiel-Milwaukee, which is this coming weekend!
Let’s see what Boards & Barley I enjoyed this past week…
The Barley:
Barley and Boards are good on their own, but are unstoppable when combined!
Leffe Bruin: I love Leffe. The Blond and the Brown are both really enjoyable. I think I prefer the blond during the spring and summer and the brown during autumn and winter. We were having a game night last week so I bought a 6 pack of this. Fortunately for me only one person took one, so I had plenty for myself! Side note: a friend of mine also likes Leffe and we once had fun making up Steampunk names. His chosen name: Leffe Steampunker.
New Glarus Staghorn: Yep, I enjoyed more of New Glarus’ Oktoberfest brew. It’s so good!
Lake Louie Dino’s Dark: I’ve had other beers from Lake Louie before, but never the Dino’s Dark. The other beers they offer have all been really enjoyable. This was no different. They have a pretty small operation, but they sure put out high quality beers! I’m hoping to tour their brewery some day.
Leinenkugel’s Oktoberfest: I still had one on hand from the crate we bought a few weeks ago. I solved that problem by quickly downing this tasty beverage.
Paulaner Salvator Double Bock: Yum. I enjoyed this beer while on a date with my wife where we got three games to the table. Wife + Beer + Games = Great date night!
Tyranena Gemuctlichkeit Oktoberfest: Besides the goofy name, this was a pretty decent Oktoberfest brew. It should be noted that I will have to try another one since I drank this one from the bottle while I was also watching my kids, which ultimately lowered the overall experience with this beer. What a pity, having to re-try a beer.
The Boards:
X-Wing: Why did it take me so long to play this game? Maybe because I kept waiting to see if my local Target would drop the price to $12 like other people have mentioned. You lucky people. Fortunately my friend bought a copy (and has subsequently bought a bunch of add-ons). So I was able to get my first taste of the game. AHHH-mazing! It helps that I rolled hits on 90 percent of my rolls. It was total domination!
My first ever Galaxy Truck!
Galaxy Trucker: I received this game in a trade over a year ago. This past Wednesday I finally got to play it. That is unacceptable and I have offered my sincerest apologies to my copy of Galaxy Trucker. I may have to send a personal apology to Vlaada Chvatil. When we played it we realized that it was completely awesome! This is a really excellent game that I should not have waited so long to play.
Libertalia: Arrr Matey. We got Libertalia to the table on Wednesday and, as usual, thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed the first two rounds. I was playing my best game of Libertalia ever. Then I got Monkeyed. And the Monkey passed me 4 curses. And to add insult to injury, during dusk I had to take another curse token. Needless to say I did not win.
Tsuro: My friend’s $1.20 thrift find of Tsuro keeps making it to the table. We played a pretty fun game of it where nearly everyone was left until the last four tiles. This is such a good filler game, but I don’t think I’d pay $40 for it.
CoinAge: I got a free copy of CoinAge from the designer, Adam McIver, at GenCon. I hadn’t been able to play it until last Friday, when I taught it to my wife. For being a game of three cards, where two of them are rules, I’ve never realized how much strategy you can pack into a game that requires pocket change. This was really enjoyable and I’m looking forward to playing it with someone who likes games more than my wife.
Morels: This is a game that my wife really enjoys. I enjoy it for that fact. You can check out my review of Morels to see what I thought. But the fact that my wife will play it with me means it gets a shiny little star.
The Little Prince: This is another game that my wife enjoys. So with Morels from GenCon 2012 and The Little Prince from GenCon 2013 I’ve been able to prove to my wife that my visiting of GenCon has been worth it both years. While I don’t enjoy the 2 player version of The Little Prince as much, it is still a really fun game.
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So those are the Boards and Barley I enjoyed last week. What did you enjoy???
Monday Brews: 9-16-13
First things first: Happy birthday to my good friend Jeremy (@JeremyVanMan). I hope you have a great day!
Second, it’s Monday, which means you’re probably having one of the worst days of your week. And that’s why I present The Monday Brews to you weekly. Hopefully by reading what I enjoyed over the past week you can forget about work for a few minutes and remember the fun games you played this past week.
So here’s the Boards & Barley that I enjoyed this past week:
The Barley:
Have you ever tried to kick a pumpkin???
Ben Franklin’s Honey: I was able to enjoy my second to last of this homebrew while homebrewing. As Charlie Papazian says, “Relax and have a homebrew!” There’s nothing better than enjoying one of your hombrews while you’re homebrewing.
Leinenkugels Oktoberfest: Now that the temperatures are dropping this seems like a more appropriate beer choice rather than like two weeks ago when it was 90 degrees. I love the oktoberfest style and attending Oktoberfest in Germany is definitely near the top of my Bucket List.
New Belgium Pumpkick: Now that fall is nearly upon us it’s time to start enjoying spicy pumpkin beer. The New Belgium approach to pumpkin beer was an excellent one! Some pumpkin beers are just too pumpkinny, but this one was very nicely done with a subtle presence of pumpkin. Nicely done, New Belgium!
Great Dane Stone of Scone Scotch Ale: The scotch ale style is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I used to consider Belgian styles as my favorites, particularly Tripels, but my palate is changing. This was brought to my house in a growler and was thoroughly enjoyed.
New Glarus Staghorn: This is a local Oktoberfest style brew that the aforementioned Jeremy considers the best Oktoberfest there is. I cannot disagree. This is an excellent beer and I look forward to Autumn so that I can enjoy this particular beverage.
The Boards:
6 Player Kingdom Builder Variant of Awesomeness!
Kingdom Builder x3: I’ve been loving this game since I bought the Crossroads expansion at GenCon. I think that the new expansion is a very nice addition to the game. And we also made a 6 player variant that would also work for 8 players. The picture shows the setup we used for 6 players. We played with three teams of two. You would work together and the final scoring would be done based on your two teams colors together. Yet the adjacency rule only held for your own color. I may write this up as a session report on BGG because it worked so well.
The Little Prince: I can’t get enough of this game. We taught another new player and he enjoyed it despite not doing very well. It’s just so clever. On the flipside, I wouldn’t mind a retheme. Get on that, internets!
Skyline: When looking for fillers, this game has been our pick of the poison lately. It’s simple. It’s quick. And it’s fun. My only complaint is that I wish the base dice, middle dice, and top dice were different colors. That would make it just a bit easier to see what dice you are actually using. But it’s a very fun game.
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So that was the Boards & Barley that I enjoyed last week. What did you enjoy??
Monday Brews: 9-9-13
It’s another Monday. Bummer. But I’m here to help. If you didn’t get to play any games or drink any beer this past weekend, then please feel free to live vicariously through me. Not only did our group have the first board game night of the season, but my wife and I also had company over that love to play games and enjoy beer.
So here’s the list of the Boards & Barley that I enjoyed this past week:
The Barley:
Vintage Oktoberfest: During our softball team’s banquet I enjoyed this Oktoberfest. Our team won our league and we were able to hand out some very cheap t-shirts from the league as a prize. They didn’t even mention what sport we won or what year we won it. For all we know the league bought a thousand t-shirts back in 1986. But I digress… This was an enjoyable beer on a night of celebration. I’d drink it again!
Vintage Cat’s Pajamas: After I had the Oktoberfest I followed it up with the Cat’s Pajamas. This is a nitrogen conditioned North English Style Brown Ale. And it was quite delicious. Plus, I love the name! So I’d probably get this beer again as well.
Sierra Nevada Flipside Red IPA: My first selection at our group’s game night was the Flipside Red IPA. I’m not normally an IPA kind of guy since I feel like brewers often just throw a bunch of hops in and label it as “special.” I’d rather have a different beer style where a brewer actually has to work for something special. Never-the-less, this was a decently enjoyable beer. It didn’t possess an overabundance of hops, which left room for some real flavor.
“I’m only gonna have one beer… I promise!”
Hofbrau Oktoberfest: I only bought one beer for game night. But fortunately it was the big beast you see on the right. This 5 liter behemoth was enough to treat everyone accordingly at game night. And it was delicious. And it was only $20. That’s a way better deal than throwing $15 at 30 PBRs. Just sayin’.
Potosi Gandy Dancer Porter: This is a beer that I’ve wanted to try for a while and never had the opportunity because I haven’t been buying a lot of beer. Fortunately my game playing compadres for the weekend threw down and snagged a sixer. So I was able to have one of these funnily named brews. For those unawares, a Gandy Dancer was someone who laid and maintained railways before the work was done by machines. And for those interested, I may or may not choose to design a game of the same name and thus try to earn a part of the train game market. Oh, and the beer was okay. I probably wouldn’t go out and buy it myself, but I’d enjoy it if someone else bought it. An interesting fact about Potosi Brewing Co.: It is home to the National Brewery Museum.
Title Town Jolly Roger: This was my second IPA of the weekend. Can someone check my temp? Well, this is about the least IPA-ish IPA that I’ve ever had, so it wasn’t too obtrusive for my palate. My friend brought some in his growler and I enjoyed Title Town beer during the Packer’s disappointing game. Oh well.
The Boards:
The Little Prince: I almost had the victory in our four player game. But the Baobabs caused me to fail. Beware of the Baobabs!
Rialto x2: It turns out that the demo we did at GenCon was taught to us incorrectly. That’s annoying. We were not taught the correct use of the Gondola cards. We were taught the highest bid puts out the gondola tile, and no one else did anything. The correct rule is that when you play a gondola card you take councilman from the general supply and place them into your personal supply. This changes things a lot and makes the game more enjoyable. So I got to play it twice over the weekend and despite losing both times, thoroughly enjoyed it.
7 Wonders x2: (Once base only and once with Leaders & Cities): Our group loves 7 Wonders. The first time I played it over the weekend I scored an absolutely miserable 35. That was with the base game only. The second time I played it we included the Leaders and Cities expansions, which makes the game quite a bit deeper. Unfortunately I had some bad leaders that only netted me 4 points.
I had almost as much fun trying to pronounce the city names as I did playing the game.
Trains x2: My friend Jeremy picked this up at GenCon and I was finally able to play it. First things first: I’d now rather play this than Dominion. I thought the game was really enjoyable. While basically being a Dominion type game I thought it offered enough interesting new stuff to make it enjoyable. I would probably buy this if I had any sort of budget for buying new games right now. My only question about the game is how can they trademark the very basic common word “Trains”?
Kingdom Builder x2: (With Nomads & Crossroads): I love Kingdom Builder. I love how simple it is in terms of mechanics and how deep it is in terms of strategy. So I jumped at the chance to pick up the Crossroads expansion at GenCon despite the Queen Games booth never offering discount pricing. This is another GenCon purchase within our group that I finally got to play over the weekend. (Note: I still have yet to play Targi.) I thought the Crossroads expansion added quite a bit to the game without changing the overall concept of the game. I’m looking forward to playing again!
Castles of Burgundy: Since this is one of my favorite games I was happy when it was selected over the weekend. I was unable to claim victory but I sure had a lot of fun trying. This game, once you get over the learning curve, is a truly excellent design. My only problem with the game is that they chose the Papyrus font.
Dominion: While I’ve lost a little of my love for the game, it’s still enjoyable every once in a while. We played with a mix of cards from the Dark Ages, Prosperity, and Intrigue expansions. It was a strange mix of cards though. After playing Trains a couple times over the weekend I realized that I enjoyed the lack of “Attack” cards in Trains, and disliked them in Dominion.
Cave Troll: I hadn’t even heard of this 2002 Fantasy Flight game until I saw it in the bag of games that my friends brought over. I played a two player game of Cave Troll and was able to win the game. It seemed to me like an interesting take on chess with a fantasy theme. While it was interesting I probably wouldn’t suggest the game above others like Trains or Kingdom Builder.
Hanabi: I also had the opportunity to teach the recent SdJ winner to the visiting friends. We scored 19 out of 25, which is pretty decent for having two new players. We were hindered by discarding both white number 3 cards without realizing it. That cost us a few points. This game is pretty fun and I’ll play it again if for no other reason than it is simple to teach but deep to strategize about.
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So those are the Boards & Barley I enjoyed this past week. You can see that it was a pretty good week of games and beer! What did you play or drink that you enjoyed this past week?
Tuesday Brews: 9-3-13
Yesterday was Labor Day. That meant I was at home doing anything besides labor. (I actually got quite a bit done). But it also means that I didn’t post a Monday Brews article. Well, today is the Tuesday after Labor Day and I am calling it “Redemption Day,” as I attempt to redeem for the lack of a Monday Brews article.
So let’s get down to the Boards and Barley coverage, where you will find a couple of surprising beverages…
The Barley:
Leinenkugel’s Oktoberfest: Tis the season when the weather changes and Oktoberfests become my go-to brew of choice.
New Glarus Staghorn: This is one of the best, if not the best, Oktoberfests out there. Just plain awesomeness in a bottle!
Ben Franklin’s Honey: I think there are only three bottles of my second homebrew remaining. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Redd’s Strawberry Ale: The first entry that doesn’t quite seem right here. Over the weekend I saw one of these in my parent’s fridge and figured I should try it. It was VERY sweet and VERY strawberry. It didn’t taste alcoholic at all (and probably wasn’t very alcoholic). If nothing else, it was an interesting taste experiment for my tongue.
Bud Light Lime: Another intriguing outcast that makes the list this week is Bud Light Lime. I’m not sure what happened. One moment I was enjoying a nicer beverage while partaking in a fantasy football draft and then all of a sudden a Bud Light Lime shows up for consumption. I’ll blame the Bud Light Lime if my fantasy football season goes awry.
Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy: I couldn’t let that list end with an Anheuser-Busch InBev product. So I finished the weekend strong with a nice refreshing summer brew. The Summer Shandy has had a good run. Unfortunately with the weather cooling down and the leaves thinking about changing colors, this product probably won’t be making this list again for a few months. See you next summer, Summer Shandy!
The Boards:
The Little Prince: For future reference, this will likely make this list often over the next few months. So good!
Dungeon Roll: This one will also likely make this list often over the next few months. I played it with my 4yo daughter and let her pull all the treasure tokens out when I earned them. Then at dinner later in the week she was playing with her food and having me “roll” it. Then she would decide whether it was a treasure chest or a monster. There were many more treasure chests than monsters.
Prototype components for The City Beneath.
The City Beneath: This is my friend Adam Buckingham‘s game based on his novel by the same name. It is a steampunk heist game that very much revolves around the different abilities of the characters. In the game you are trying to get away with the heist while making other people take the blame. It’s still a prototype but it is really enjoyable and I hope he keeps developing it. It definitely has legs!
Mars Needs Mechanics: I’m interested in learning about the original theme of the game. I wanna say it was an African black market or something along those lines. We had a good time playing the game, though we stretched it to handle 5 players instead of the box-recommended limit of 4. The economics of the game are very interesting and the art is very enjoyable. Nicely done Ben Rosset and Bryan Fischer!
Skyline: This could be the go-to filler du jour for a while. It comes in a small box, has awesome dice, and plays relatively quickly. And I think the gameplay is pretty interesting as well. There is a high reward factor when you can top off one of the sky scrapers!
Tsuro: It seems my list is populated with filler material lately. This game is fun and plays very fast.
Scoville: I was able to teach the game to two different groups at my FLGS on Saturday. Two people in the second group said they loved it and would have bought it if it had been on the shelf. At that point I let them know that it will likely be on Kickstarter in November (so keep your eyes open for that!). They also received the buttons that Ken Grazier produced for me!
MarsPost: This was an unpublished prototype that I had the chance to play. It’s a very interesting take on worker placement. The concept is you are mining asteroids from the asteroid belt and utilizing a post on Mars to turn the resources into buildings and thus points. While it is a little rough around the edges I very much enjoyed it!
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That’s the weekly Boards & Barley. What was your favorite beverage or board game this past week??
The Monday Brews: 8/26/13
Here we are… either recovering from con crud (thankfully I wasn’t struck by that beast) or desperately looking forward to Spiel (alas, I will not be able to attend). Never-the-less we keep pushing forward in our consumption of barley-derived beverages and cardboard creations.
It’s Monday, so it’s time to recap the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed last week:
The Barley:
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss: With the summer coming to an end since I live in Wisconsin, I have to finish off the Honey Weiss that I have. So I enjoyed one of these while participating in a Fantasy Football draft. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to have helped my draft choices.
Leinenkugel’s Oktoberfest: I know, it’s a little early for Oktoberfests. But it’s one of my favorite beer styles, so I enjoy it when I can. I liken it to drinking Egg Nog in November even though it’s really a Christmas beverage.
New Glarus Spotted Cow: This one is a staple for many Wisconsin beer enthusiasts. It’s technically a farmhouse ale, but I would almost put it in a class with cream ales. It’s easy to drink and it’s delicious.
That’s it for the Barley this week. Let’s see what I played:
The Boards:
Hanabi: My level 1 friend Jeremy and I taught Hanabi to our wives. Mine was bored with the game. But she admitted she’d be willing to play it again. I think we ended with 19 points, though, which is pretty decent.
Giving new meaning to “Push Your Luck!”
Via Appia: This was a GenCon purchase of Jeremy’s and I was particularly excited to play it. There is a really cool pusher mechanic where you can try to push stones off and earn the corresponding stone tiles. This game wasn’t a very complicated game, but I had fun with it. I’d like to try it with 3 or 4 players rather than just two. Image from BGG.com.
Scoville: On Saturday I visited with some friends in the Chicago area and they requested to play Scoville! So it hit the table and I was able to try out a newish variant with bonus abilities. They enjoyed the game though one player ended with a really low score. And the bonus abilities worked well enough for me to add them into the rules as a variant.
The Little Prince: If you read my review of the game last Friday then you already know that I really enjoy this game. It is so much fun and I love the little intricacies of the strategy.
Dungeon Roll: I went on a nice solo delve for the first time and was pleased with my result. Using the Archaeologist I was able to score 26 points. My big success was slaying a dragon in Level 2 of the dungeon. I love the whole presentation of the game. It felt like I was actually delving a dungeon and using my heros to defeat enemies. I’m looking forward to my next delve.
So that’s the Boards and Barley I enjoyed last week. But I need to mention one other thing today…
It’s Time for a Giveaway! Almost…
I hit 400 followers on Twitter over the weekend. I can’t believe so many people follow me and read my blog. You all are awesome and I’m inspired by you guys every day. So as a way to show my appreciation for the Twitter game design community I’m giving a game away. I haven’t decided which game to give away, or how I’m going to do it, but later this week I’ll post an article all about it. That will likely be on Thursday. So keep tweeting and enjoying the boards and barley!
Thanks for reading!
Boards and Barley 