Beer & Bread rules: how to play and how to score

Beer & Bread quick rules

The goal

Over six years, you harvest resources, sell beer and bread, and upgrade your facilities. Each card you sell earns coins. At the end, you have a total for beer and a total for bread, and only the lower of the two counts: you must stay balanced.

Cards and resources

There are 30 beer cards and 30 bread cards. Each card is used for one action only: harvest with its top section, be sold with its recipe, or become an upgrade with its bottom section. The five resources, water, wheat, barley, rye and hops, are collected from the fields and the river you share. Your storage has 9 storage units, one token per unit.

One year

Years 1, 3 and 5 are fruitful years, years 2, 4 and 6 are dry years. Each year starts with the Seeding phase: bring each field up to the number on its wooden sign, the green part for a fruitful year, the red part for a dry year, and add all water tokens from the supply to the river.

Fruitful years

Each player is dealt 5 cards, the player with the windmill first. The player with the windmill plays one card, then the other player, then you swap hands. Keep going until all cards have been played.

Dry years

Each player picks up their harvest cards from the previous year and draws up to 5 cards. Three exchange cards are placed face up on the board. You take alternating turns without swapping hands; on your turn, you can swap a hand card for an exchange card and immediately play the card you took.

Harvest and Store

Place the card in front of you, offset on top of your harvest cards for the year: this is your harvest column. For each resource type on the played card, collect as many tokens as your whole column shows, limited to what is left on the fields and the river. If your storage overflows, offer the excess to the other player, who keeps what fits.

Produce and Sell

Place a beer card onto your brewery or a bread card onto your bakery, pay the resources of its recipe, then flip the card face down: it has been sold. Your brewery and your bakery can each hold only one card, and a sold card stays there until your next clean-up.

Upgrade and Clean

Slide the card under your side of the board, under the upgrade slot shown by its icon: its benefit lasts for the rest of the game. Right after that, your sold cards leave your brewery and bakery and go face down beside the board. This is the only way to make room to sell again.

The windmill and the end of a year

When all cards have been played, the windmill goes to the player with fewer tokens in their storage; on a tie, to the player who did not have it. That player starts the next year. After a dry year, discard the exchange cards and the harvest cards, then move the year marker forward.

Game end and scoring

After the sixth year, each player reveals their sold cards, including any still in their brewery and bakery. Add up the coins on your beer cards, then on your bread cards, and add the extra coins from your scoring upgrades. Your final score is the lower of the two totals. On a tie, the other total breaks it, then the player without the windmill wins.

Beginner traps

An imbalance is costly: with 12 coins of beer and 30 of bread, your score is only 12. Remember to play an upgrade to clean your brewery and bakery, or you cannot sell any more. And in a fruitful year, the cards you keep in hand go to the other player at the swap.

How to score Beer & Bread

Sold beer cards

The sum of the coins printed on all your sold beer cards, including any still in your brewery.

Upgrades for beer

Extra coins for beer from your scoring upgrades.

Beer total

Sold beer cards plus upgrades for beer.

Sold bread cards

The sum of the coins printed on all your sold bread cards, including any still in your bakery.

Upgrades for bread

Extra coins for bread from your scoring upgrades.

Bread total

Sold bread cards plus upgrades for bread.

The higher total does not count

Only the lower of your two totals is your final score: the Ludingo score sheet removes the higher one.

Ties

The player whose other total is higher wins. If it is still a tie, the player who does not have the windmill wins.

Worked example

Emma sold beer cards worth 6, 7 and 9 coins: 22, plus 2 coins from upgrades, so 24. Her bread cards worth 4, 7, 8 and 4 make 23, plus 3, so 26. Her final score is 24. Jake ends with 25 for beer and 24 for bread: 24 as well. On a tie, the other total decides: 26 against 25, Emma wins.

Common mistakes

• Adding beer and bread together: only the lower of the two totals counts.
• Forgetting cards still in your brewery or bakery: they are sold and they count.
• Splitting a 2-coin bonus for either good between beer and bread: it goes entirely to one good, usually the lower one.
• Counting the tokens left in your storage: they are worth nothing, except for an upgrade that requires at least 2 more than the other player.

How to set up Beer & Bread

Setup takes about 2 minutes: the fields and the river are only filled in the Seeding phase of the first year.