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How to Play

Beer & Bread

2-2 players 30-45 min 7.3 Board Game Geek Rating

Two neighboring villages compete in brewing and baking across six alternating prosperous and lean years. Players draft multi-purpose cards to harvest resources, craft beer and bread, earn coins, and enhance production facilities. Victory requires balanced output—only coins from your weaker product category count toward your final score, making strategic equilibrium essential.

Published 2022

Beer & Bread

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

1
Follow standard setup
No changes from base game except for the modifications below
2
Remove upgrade cards
Take five cards depicting the "other player" action from the upgrade section and place them above the opponent's side of the board using the upgrade sections
3
Add bread card
Randomly pick a bread card and fill in the last spot of the upgrade sections, resulting in 6 total cards (2 Bread & 4 Beer)
4
Note purchasable cards
These 6 cards are optional to purchase at any time as a free action but can never be used for upgrades or resources

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

1
Receive windmill
The Windmill is passed to you always, regardless of storage count
2
Draw cards
Draw two cards from the draw deck, select one card to keep and discard the other
3
Execute opponent harvest
Remove resources from fields and river matching the card you discarded
4
Track turns
Place discarded cards on a discard pile next to the draw deck to track turns during rounds
5
Complete windmill phase
After 5 turns, pass the Windmill token to the "other" player regardless of storage count, then remove all resources from the "other" player storage
6
Set up normally
Follow the same setup as regular rules
7
Draw cards
Draw cards until you have 5 in hand, same as regular rules
8
Handle opponent turn
At the end of your turn, draw 1 card for the "other" player and follow the same harvest rules as fruitful years
9
Roll for exchange cards
After completing opponent cards, roll a die; if result equals a number on an exchange card slot, remove that card from play
10
Manage excess resources
When you collect more resource tokens than you can store, choose from all your tokens which to keep
11
Offer to opponent
The rest must be offered to the "other" player who will always take and store as many as needed to fill their storage units (your choice which)
12
Return remainder
Any excess tokens after opponent fills storage are returned to the common supply

Winning

How to claim victory.

1
Follow official scoring
Use the same scoring rules as the official game
2
Beat your own score
This is a BYOS (Beat Your Own Score) variant where you are not competing against the Bot
3
Understand Bot purpose
The Bot exists only to make it more challenging for you to reach your goal
4
Check score thresholds
Compare your final score to the rating scale:

watch & Learn

Let the pros teach you with these top videos.

Bit för bit - Beer & Bread

Bit för bit - Beer & Bread

Instructional

Cerveza y Pan, aprende a jugar

Cerveza y Pan, aprende a jugar

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FULL rules

Looking for the full details? Grab the complete rulebook as a downloadable PDF.

PDF RULEBOOK

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