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…
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 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??
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:
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:
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…
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!
Aug 19
This gallery contains 40 photos.
Today will be a different style of Monday Brews. Instead of listing the beer and board games I enjoyed I am posting a gallery of some of the things I played or saw at GenCon. Don’t worry. This is a family friendly gallery, which means I didn’t take any pictures of men or women that […]
Oh baby! It’s GenCon week! That means I’ve already been staying up way too late as I prepare for the convention. I’ll be providing my GenCon Preparation blog post tomorrow with tons of awesome goodness (maybe). But today is Monday.
That means it’s time to review the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week. Let’s start with the Barley as usual…
Ben Franklin’s Honey: I am nearing the end of my supply of my second homebrew. I had hoped to have a few of these left to bring to GenCon but that’s not the case anymore. Sorry fellow designers. At least we still have PBR!
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss: This excellent Wisconsin beer is enjoyable to drink, goes down smooth, and has a refreshing taste of honey. This is a favorite summer beer of mine, especially when I’m camping.
Lake Louie Warped Speed Scotch Ale: Lake Louie makes my favorite Scotch Ale. Located in Arena, WI, they have made tasty beer for a while now. But just recently, I believe, they just re-opened their doors for tours. This scotch ale is a really good beer.
Warning: May make other game designers jealous!
Boddington’s Pub Ale: A can of Boddington’s isn’t just an enjoyable beverage. It’s also an enjoyable experience. I brought a couple to Protospiel-Milwaukee and could feel the jealousy of our fellow designer’s as Adam and I cracked the can and listened to the widget exhale. This British pub ale is a very excellent beer, even outside of game designer events! The only downside is that it’s a product on InBev.
Alberti Amber: I have had the last of my first homebrew ever. There’s a little tear running down my cheek. My friend’s seemed to enjoy this one so I may brew it again. Alberti and I had an enjoyable ride.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: I purchased this and the Leinie’s Honey Weiss for our softball team to enjoy after our last game of the season. Thankfully we won the game and became the league champions! That made this beer much more enjoyable, since I’m not typically a Pale Ale or IPA kind of guy.
It was another slow gaming week for me. I’ve been pretty busy prepping for GenCon and haven’t had as much time to actually play games. But here are the two lonely games I played this week:
Qwirkle: This is a great abstract game. In Qwirkle you are trying to complete sets of six tiles of either the same shape or the same color. There is a fun amount of strategy in this game. It’s pretty easy to teach. And since I have the travel edition it is pretty easy to take anywhere!
Scoville: I had the pleasure of testing Scoville with a good friend of mine. He had previously played the game twice, including the 4th ever playtest in Scoville history. We played a very close game until the end when he beat me to a 16 point recipe and I had nothing to fall back on. I love that about the game though; Sometimes you just have to make sure you get what you want first! I ended up losing, but the game was a lot of fun. Here’s a picture from early on in the game at our camping table:
Sometimes playing by the light of a lantern is really fun!
Last Friday was my birthday. And it happened to coincide with the receiving of two Kickstarter project rewards and one Blogiversary prize!
The special Kickstarter variant “Mimic” box.
On Friday before we left for camping I received my Dungeon Roll game from Tasty Minstrel Games. Dungeon Roll comes is a sweet treasure chest box. It includes a bunch of custom dice and hero cards. I have not yet played, but since there were over 10,000 backers there’s no shortage of people who have gotten it to the table. Congrats to Tasty Minstrel on a very successful campaign!
Then when I got home from camping I learned that my Catan Board had arrived. This was expected to arrive in April, so that’s a little disappointing. But the product looks really nice. I’m hoping that it works as advertised.
And finally my prize arrived for being the randomly chosen winner of the Theology of Games Blogiversary Contest #2. The game I won is Sunrise City, by Clever Mojo Games! I’m very excited to get this game to the table!
Add in the fact that I also received Le Havre: The Inland Port and a set of Beer Glasses for my birthday and you’ll see that all the gifts I received had to do with either Boards or Barley. (Disclaimer: I also received Seasons 1 & 2 of MacGyver, but I already had those so I returned them and bought something for my kids with the money).
And now we’ve got GenCon week! So I’ll pretend it’s my birthday all week!
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So that’s the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week. Any of you try a new game or new brew that left a lasting impression?
Another week has left us. And what a glorious week we have upon us. Just as we are gearing up for GenCon it turns out that I have a birthday this Friday! So of course this week will be a good one. I suppose I should try to get some playtesting in so that I’m not taking garbage to GenCon. But we’ll worry about that later.
Here’s a recap of my boards and barleys from the past week…
Capital Brewery Supper Club: This is an excellent beer to enjoy when you’re not worried about anything. Sit back, put your feet up, and realize this beer’s “not bad.”
O’So Big O: This was another decent beer to enjoy while relaxing. It had a little tanginess, but that didn’t hinder the enjoyment. This beer is from the wonderful town of Plover, WI.
Ben Franklin’s Honey: I again enjoyed some of my own homebrew. However, I have a big problem. I am almost out of my own beer and I don’t have a batch currently fermenting. We are approaching mission critical here. I’d better start brewing!
Here’s glimpse of a cooler I was able to rummage through at a party I attended this weekend. Some of the better beers were in a different cooler.
Some excellent Wisconsin beers. One not-so-excellent Wisconsin beer. And then there’s Corona.
Horny Goat Watermelon Wheat: Rule #1: No fruit in beer unless it’s a Lambic and it’s done correctly. Rule #2: If you’re using fruit in beer, please just not watermelon. Yeah… I didn’t care for this beer and won’t be having it again.
Pabst Blue Ribbon: Out of reverence for fellow game designers that I had the privilege to meet at Protospiel-Wisconsin, I hoisted a cold PBR this weekend. And I realized that it wasn’t that bad. I’d have another, especially if it was available at GenCon!
Unfortunately I didn’t get to play as many games as I had hoped. Here’s the three that I did manage to play:
Tsuro: My friend’s $1.20 thrift store find has made the table a bunch lately. And we got it out again this past week. This is a great filler game that doesn’t take much though, has minimal downtime, and is also fun to play. unlike last week we didn’t have a three-way tie for the win.
Guillotine: This is a fun card game where players try to get the most points over the course of three days. During each day different cards are placed on the table. On a player’s turn they can play a card from their hand, and then they must take the card closest to the guillotine. The card they played hopefully allowed them to put a better card in that spot so that they didn’t have to take a bad one. It’s a pretty fun game despite some dude’s butts on some of the cards.
The Settlers of Catan: We always have fun when we play this game, even with 6 players. When we play with 6 I get to use my two different versions and the table looks pretty funny. But it’s always a fun game, even if I know I’m going to lose after the initial placement phase. Here’s a picture of our setup:
Mish-mash at its best! Excuse the blurriness.
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Another week under the belt. What Barley or Boards did you enjoy this past week?
Boards and Barley 