Brew beer like a pro, fulfil orders, win prizes: Brewmaster lets you simulate the art of brewing beer on Steam. Is it any good?
Learn all about brewing beer, but without tasting the product? Isn”t that like a spa day in a spa simulation? Nice to look at, but ultimately unsatisfying? These are the questions I asked myself about Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator.
The short answer: of course the real tasting of the barley juice is missing. But nevertheless the game does many things right! I”ll answer why and how at the end in my personal conclusion after an hour of playing. But first I”ll introduce you to the game in more detail.
Brewmaster was released on Steam on 29 September 2022, so it”s as fresh as a draught Pilsner in summer. For the release, developer Auroch Digital and publisher Fireshine Games are also reducing the price by ten percent. At around 16 euros, the game costs about as much as a crate of beer.
This is what Brewmaster is all about
You start in your own personal brewing room, which also has a cosy tasting room for expert tasting of your beer creations. In the step-by-step tutorial, you start brewing your first beer right away.
The trailer shows how it”s done:
To do this, take a large saucepan from the equipment shelf, fill it by hand with just the right amount of water and add the appropriate amount of malt extract from the fridge. Then bring the soup to the boil and hang a bag of barley on the pot to soak.
Followed by more ingredients for the extraction process are hung in bags in the boiling pot. Thanks to the practical timer, you don”t have to run lengthy processes in real time, but can simply fast-forward.
Once the soup is ready, pour it into a small barrel and leave it to cool overnight so that you can later start the fermentation process with the help of yeast From there, it”s just a few more steps (and fast-forwardable in-game weeks) until you can rate your first beer in the tasting room. Then extensive statistics will show you how good the barley juice has turned out, including how high the bitterness content and how carbonated it is.
The screenshots show you more of the game:
Your brewed beers can be entered into competitions to win in-game currency. Or you can brew special commissioned beers with special requirements, also to earn money. You can then invest this in better equipment and ingredients. This creates a motivating gameplay spiral.
For whom is it suitable?
Do you need a soft spot for beer to have fun in Brewmaster? I think it definitely helps! Although a true beerologist is probably more inclined to actually brew their own. But for laymen with some interest in the subject, the game is definitely worth a sip.
Editor”s Verdict
Thanks to the surprising attention to detail, I learned more about brewing beers within an hour than I had in the previous 38 years. You can give Brewmaster credit for that: There really is a lot, lot of expertise in the simulation!
But if the game is too dry, that can mean that I lose the fun of the game. But can a game about brewing beer be dry at all? In any case, Brewmaster stands out with its chic graphic style, which beats other simulations such as House Flipper by a long way.
I had a lot of fun brewing my own beer Vertigo Soup for an hour. The missions and challenges, which come in the style of a handsome beer magazine, keep my motivation high to learn even more about the interesting field. I will continue to play Brewmaster for a while to see how the gameplay unfolds.
