Brewing and Cards

Brewing beer in Beer Pioneers: brewing level, coops and brewing time, rotations, finished beer; the card display and brewing level track; the three card sections, brewmasters and completing orders.

Brewing beer

With action 1 check three things:

How many beers

Your brewing level (bottle marker on the track above the board) is how many types of beer you may start with one action. You start at level 1. A “1!” action (some cards, the administrative action, a bonus action) brews exactly 1 beer whatever your level.

Which coops are open

Each of the six coops on your brewery board (Pils, Export, Lager, Stark, Weizen, Alt) takes one dial. At the start only Alt is open: the others are under the cover tiles and blocking tokens (Your Brewery).

Brewing time

Place the beer’s dial on its coop, bar pointing at the number of rotations it needs: the big number above the coop plus the number above your cube on the progress track.

Stark and Lager always need at least 4 rotations; the others at least 3, once progress is complete.

Finished beer

When a dial’s bar reaches 0, take that beer tile and put it on an empty cellar space; the dial goes back beside your board. A cellar space holds 1 beer tile or 1 barrel. With no empty space you may clear one (the tile or barrel goes back to the supply), or you lose the beer.

Rotations

One rotation turns one dial one step towards 0. Action 2 gives X rotations (the rotation icons in your display, 2 from the starting card); cards, bonus actions and the administrative action give more; and at round end every dial turns once.

Card display and brewing level

Six cards lie face up above the brewing level track, one per green space. You may take only cards up to your bottle marker (at level 1 only the leftmost). “Take” = from those or from the draw pile; “draw” = from the draw pile only. Taken cards are replaced at the end of that turn: slide the cards left and fill from the right. An empty draw pile is reshuffled from the discards.

Raising your brewing level opens more of the display and brews more beer types at once; reaching the last space unlocks the second part of the final scoring.

Action cards

Each of the 64 action cards has three usable sections; you use one when you play it (and one of the three is always empty). A grey section means nothing.

Beige-brown section

Played into your personal display (overlapping, top row visible). Its icons count all game: the lightbulbs, new barrels, barrels to move and rotations. A flash shows an immediate effect when you play it: 1 , 1 coin, 2 rotations, 1 card, 1 barrel or move 1 barrel.

Purple section: orders

An order: the beer tiles and barrels to deliver from your cellar, and the reward. “Beer” means any type. A line with Truck fleet gives an extra reward if you have built that extension. Discard after use.

White section

A one-time special action written on the card; discard after use. Card text beats the rules; do as much of it as you can.

Brewmaster characters

A white card with a person on a white background can instead be played as your brewmaster: slide it under your brewery board so its text shows. Its effect lasts as long as it is there. Only one brewmaster at a time: playing a new one returns the old one to your hand.

Completing orders

With the truck action “complete an order” (or the improved bonus action, or some white cards) play a purple card from your hand and return the beers and barrels it shows from your cellar to the supply. Score the reward.