A new year is upon us. It was 8 degrees below zero (F) this morning and will snow 2-4 inches tonight. Oh joy. But Boards & Barley is back! So there’s that.

If you are new to Boards & Barley or made a New Year’s resolution to read this site more regularly, then I welcome you with open arms. On Mondays I like to recap the beer and board games I’ve played since the last Monday Brews article. It’s been a couple weeks and we had gaming friends over for a few days so the Boards and Barley are both longer lists than normal.

But before we get into that I wanted to mention that I’ll be posting my 2014 Recap article tomorrow and a Scoville article on Friday. As a reminder, if there are topics you would like me to blog about, please let me know via Twitter or via comments on this article.

Now let’s start with the Barley…

The Barley:

But it doesn’t suck!

BARLEY SPOTLIGHT:
Lagunitas Sucks Brown Shugga Substitute

This brew was a gift from my wife. She found a beer with a 100 rating on Ratebeer and wisely purchased it. Lagunitas’ brews are usually hoppy, as was this brew. But this brew had 63 IBUs, which is about perfect for me. This enjoyable brew had a nice balance between hops and body. I’d drink it again.

• Samuel Adams Winter Lager
• Leinenkugel’s Snowdrift Vanilla Porter
• Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Ale
• Capital Winter Skal
• Labatt Prohibition Series Bourbon Barrel Aged Blonde Ale
• Point Brewery St. Benedict’s Winter Ale
• Capital Schwarz in a Box – Don’t get it. It smelled like wet dog and tasted like Dinty Moore Beef Stew.
• McEwan’s Scotch Ale – Probably the best Scotch Ale I’ve ever had!

The Boards:

Your objective is to settle… Imperially!

BOARDS SPOTLIGHT:
Imperial Settlers x3

I love this game. I love the combo-ing or chaining of cards. I love figuring out how best to obtain and spend the resources. I love that it’s easy to teach and play. I love the artwork. I love everything about it with the exception of some downtime. But the downtime can be used to figure out what you are going to do next. The other thing I love about it is that my wife enjoys it. That means it will hit the table more often than some of the “heavier” games I own. If you haven’t already done so, check out Imperial Settlers by Portal Games.

• Kingdom Builder
• Dungeon Roll
• Scoville x3 – I love those little peppers!
• Charades for Kids – My daughter was having an absolute blast with this game.
• Tenzi
• Flash!
• The Logo Game
• Sushi Go
• Mundus Novus
• Istanbul
• Unpublished Prototype – Ziggurat – This is my design, but it still needs a lot of work.
• Garden Dice – Love that Joshua Cappel artwork! It was a really clever game.
• Undermining
• Trajan – Such a great Feld!
• Euphoria
• Skyline
• Camel Up
• Yardmaster
• The Little Prince
• 7 Wonders with Leaders, Cities, and Babel expansions
• Sequence for Kids – My daughter won 3 out of 4 games with 3 players. And I don’t let kids win. She earned it!
• Hi-Ho Cherry-O

What Boards & Barley have you been enjoying? What were your favorites of 2014? Thanks for reading and I hope to bring you lots of great content in 2015!