Beer & Bread

To set up Beer & Bread, place the central board horizontally between the two players. Shuffle the 60 game cards and place them in a single draw pile next to the forest on the board, leaving adjacent space for a discard pile. Organize all resource tokens (water, wheat, barley, rye, and hops) into their respective color-coded trays. Place the year marker on the first space of the year track, and assign the starting windmill player token using a random method such as an odd/even die roll.

The objective of Beer & Bread is to outmaneuver your rival village across a series of productive years. As two neighboring communities, you compete and cooperate to gather resources, cultivate your lands, and produce the finest beer and bread.

During a turn, players draw cards, harvest resources, and perform actions such as planting crops, harvesting, and baking bread or brewing beer. Managing your resources efficiently between your limited storage areas is crucial for success.

Scoring in Beer & Bread is unique: at game end, you score both your beer total and your bread total, but your final score is determined solely by whichever category has the lower point value. This prevents players from focusing exclusively on only one product.

The game ends after a set number of years indicated by the year track. Once the final year is completed, players compare their lowest category scores to determine the winning village.