No no, your eyes do not deceive you. I'm back to posting articles! I've reviewed a movie and now it's time to review a video game!
A few weeks back, I was on the Xbox Marketplace trying to find of favorite movie of mine on sale from my college years: Beerfest. when the result for Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator popped up instead. Sure, there is a simulator game for virtually everything under the sun; They have a Power Wash Simulation game after all so it was bound to happen sooner or later. So after a couple of minutes of deliberation, I decided to make the purchase and here we are.
Developed by UK-based Auroch Digital, Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator puts you into the shoes of an unnamed individual on their quest to become the ultimate home brewmaster. The game itself is set in your own home. During the main mode of this game, Brewmaster Mode, you undertake missions to brew beers for events, contests and other breweries via a Homebrew magazine and build your reputation as a brewer. As you progress through this mode, you unlock more equipment by fulfilling certain objectives such as brewing with All-Grain, utilizing a cooling coil, using a pump and so forth and is really established as a way to learn not only the game’s mechanics but is also supposed to teach you the fundamental basics of homebrewing.
This all sounds great on paper but I did have my doubts. As someone with extensive knowledge about craft beer and brewing techniques, the burning questions I had were as follows:
- Does the game accurately depict the process, reward and even frustration that comes with homebrewing?
- Does the game get technical with the brewing process and breaks down the purpose of every piece of equipment and details what each ingredient is supposed to do?
- Lastly, do the results you get accurately reflect everything you did right along with everything you got wrong?
The answer, I’m happy to say for all of these, is a resounding yes.
When you undertake a job, you will order ingredients based on what the recipe you take using the magazine (should you not already have them readily available) and can make these purchases by redeeming tokens, which you receive by completing jobs that you can undertake, which are also accessed via the magazine. You can pin the recipe to your HUD and must utilize the equipment in your kitchen to have a desirable outcome.
There is a real sense of progression as you go further into Brewmaster Mode and the rewards you get can be in the form of new hop & malt variants, equipment and even cosmetic items like magnets & tin tacker signs.
Occasionally, you'll see entries for homebrewing contests that will sometimes have very specific requirements as far as style, ABV, flavors, etc. This is where I feel the game is at its best because it forces you to get creative with your execution and you have to fully embrace the mechanics of the game itself.
Much like actual homebrewing, everything single thing you do will have an outcome has an impact on your final product. This can be something as minor adding too much hops to a wort boil or having the temperature a little too high in a mash tun, to something major like uncleaned equipment, wrong ingredients or not placing a lid on a conditioning tank or brewing pot.
The game is presented in a First Person View and depending on how complex the brewing process is, you will be tasked with following instructions on how to properly make a recipe you have been given. This can be as simple as monitoring temperatures in your wort, to as complex as integrating heating and cooling equipment while simultaneously making sure that everything is covered or clean in order to prevent contamination of said beer. You must manage all these factors and be mindful of what you are doing.
The game does a great job holding your hand at first in order to familiarize yourself with the brewing processes and it does so long enough to where you grasp the basic concepts before taking off the training wheels to tackle more advanced styles of brewing and the styles of beer that require some extra TLC, along with managing your equipment
Since brewing beer is a VERY lengthy process, often times taking anywhere from 4-8 weeks on average, you have the option to skip time using either your watch or a calendar. Be careful with how you use it because this game is very technical with its execution and if you wait too long on anything or forget a key step in the brewing process, just like in real life, it could possibly completely change and/or and utterly ruin your beer.
When you are done making your batch of beer, your results will be judged on how accurately you created the style along with other factors such as ABV, Contamination, Standard Reference Method or SRM (How light or Dark the beer is), Original Gravity or OG and most importantly, flavor. These parameters come into play during the missions you undertake so attention to detail is paramount here!
It wouldn’t be the complete experience if you didn’t have a feeling of accomplishment and/or defeat. The game does a great job of building that anticipation of finding out how your beer turned out and when you find out it turned out great, you breathe a sigh of relief. When it turns out to be a bad batch (not fermented enough, too contaminated, off flavors) the disappointment hits you like a train. All of that hard work you put ends up being all for nothing. This might seem like a turn off to some but it is something that I personally dealt with during my homebrewing days. There’s nothing worse than putting in literally weeks of hard work into a batch of your own beer, only to end up tasting something that is infected (think vinegar mixed with butter) or something that might as well have come from a can of LaCroix.
While the main campaign gives you somewhat limited freedom at first as to what you can brew, in Free Play Mode you have access to basically all of the equipment & ingredients at your disposal. Here you can really experiment with different ingredients and brewing styles to come up with whichever style you see fit. I’m not afraid to admit that I have spent hours upon hours experimenting with all the equipment and ingredients coming up with all sorts of beers that I wish I had readily available in my fridge.
For all that this game does right, there were a couple of minor issues that I ran into that were by no means deal-breakers or game breaking-caliber but enough to take issue with. For starters, you have limited design options for your labels and I think it’s kind of a bummer since craft brewing artwork has become a really powerful medium these past few years. I would’ve loved to have an option to create your own labels from scratch, much like you see with the decal options in games like Forza. The other issue is that, very occasionally, the game will freeze for a split second without any warning before the action can resume. Thankfully, this freeze didn’t interfere with the overall flow of brewing but it happened more than a couple of times. Aside from those, there’s nothing else that I have.
Final Thoughts: I’ll admit I was concerned that Auroch Digital simply slapped together a game in which you brew beer and threw it out on the marketplace to capitalize on both Sim Games and Craft Beer Aficionados with no knowledge about how homebrewing works. This assumption, thankfully, turned out the be wildly incorrect. This game is incredibly technical with its gameplay, execution & presentation. This game is a love letter to brewers and beer geeks alike, while at the same time providing an excellent gateway for those who are unfamiliar with brewing.
Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator - 9/10
