Preview of Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator Box art

Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator

by Peggy Doyle

December 1, 2021

Craft beer and home brewing is a niche hobby that seems to have exploded over the past few years, especially when people were stuck at home more often during the pandemic. Also, a lot of people have that one friend in our group who is always just a little too eager to share their secret beer knowledge. Whether they are brewing themselves, or just an avid craft beer fan. As much as you can read about home brewing online and research until you think you know everything, there really is nothing quite like the act of doing something for yourself, and that's why I was drawn to preview Brewmaster during its alpha test on Steam recently (coming to Xbox down the road).


On the surface, the game sounds like it may be extremely boring for a lot of people (a home brew sim game) and it's not a joke title either. Brewmaster is a sim game designed to bring you an authentic experience of crafting your own brews at home.


Crafted and brewed from the Sold Out and Auroch teams, I was thrown into the world of homebrew with little to no knowledge of what brewing beer would actually involve. Auroch specializes in games that connect you to the real world, and they have a lot of foodies and craft beer fans on their team. This was evident with the level of detail found in the process of brewing the one recipe provided to me in the alpha test, "auroch digitale", yes digital ale. They have clever names for a lot of their ingredients as well in game.

Brewmaster is designed to be for anyone interested in brewing, from beginners who wouldn't know what a hydrometer or wort is, to aficionados interested in building their own brewing empire some day. It's comforting to know you can experiment in the sim without losing any money in your real life too. No expensive investment or extensive knowledge required? I'm in, let's brew some beer.


I started in the kitchen workspace with simply a recipe and no plan. I was happy that the recipe was written out in baby steps. Go to the equipment cabinet and get the large steel pot. Go to the sink, place the pot in the sink, take off the lid, turn the tap on and fill the pot with water. Maybe the steps were a bit too simple, but I loved that it was really clear and didn't leave much room for misunderstanding. As it walked you through the entire process, all the steps were clear. What ingredients should be added, and when, and even gave info as to what will happen when you add them. A little bit of the science of beer making. I found that very interesting.

I once was part of a chemistry class back in technical school who took our lab off site and studied the science of beer by brewing a German style ale as a class project. Our teacher really was the coolest, but that is another story for another day. You have to use F1 to open the recipe to look at it between steps. I would love to see an option of having the recipe on the side of the screen all the time so you can follow along and check things off, instead of having to stop and open the recipe and check after each step.


As you are adding ingredients to the recipe, you have to be precise. Pouring 400g of something from a large bag isn't as easy as it might seem, especially when using keyboard and mouse controls. Did I over pour? Sure, I did. But like most recipes, if you're really close, you are usually going to be okay. One thing I did find was that you spend a lot of time waiting for the processes to happen. Good thing you can use a stopwatch function to speed up time while waiting for steps to complete, or a calendar to skip full days when you have to wait for your 15 days to pass.

Speaking of measurements, the studio of Auroch is in Bristol, England. They have a bustling craft beer scene, and also work in metric units. Some people who aren't as comfortable using Celsius, grams or litres, may find Brewmaster a bit more complicated to follow. The also use the word ‘hob' for stove. I am familiar with this phrase from my love of British television, but it would be pretty simple to figure out when they say to place the pot of water on the hob and heat it. The authenticity of the sim is evident. The chemistry is sound and there is a large amount of attention to detail.


There are a lot of steps in the process, none are too difficult to follow. Get equipment, set it up, add ingredients, wait, add more ingredients, use different equipment, wait. That was the process in a nutshell. I am making it seem like it was really simple, but there was a lot of equipment and a lot of ingredients. I think you could really let your creative side take over here.

Talking to people who were more familiar with home brewing in the discord made it clear that this was pretty close to the real process of home brewing. Those more experienced even took a freestyle approach, not following the given recipe, and using their knowledge to create different varieties of beer. I am not that comfortable in my knowledge to do that right now, as was evident when I made something basically not fit for human consumption during one of my playthroughs.

Yes, you get the full breakdown of all your beer characteristics after it's brewed as well, the ABV, colour, tasting notes, profile etc. Just like you would read off a menu at a craft beer pub. I thought it was really well done, and when I followed the recipe to the letter, I made something I would actually have consumed in reality. I light bodied ale with 4.75% alcohol and bright, hoppy citrus notes. Sounds like a great patio beer to me.


Auroch has said that once the full game launches, you'll have a variety of recipes to check out, including wheats, blondes, stouts, IPAs and more. You can perfect your recipes, refine the taste, create custom labels when bottling your beer, and even submit it to local competitions. You'll be able to customise your workspace as well, creating your dream set up. You will also have the opportunity to brew for special events, like a wedding perhaps? There will be a basic story driven campaign and a sandbox mode where you can let your creativity go wild.


The version of Brewmaster I tried was a very early build, meaning it wasn't complete, and there were a lot of features missing. Luckily, Auroch has a discord where they have been sharing things that will be coming to the game and answering and responding to questions and suggestions from people who played it. I did encounter a few bugs and I think once it's refined and all the quality-of-life things are added, this will be a lot of fun. The majority of problems I had were with using a keyboard and mouse since I am primarily a console gamer with controllers, so I really look forward to playing this on Xbox in the future.

Brewmaster is a fantastic, realistic and authentic sim game that gives you the real feel of an expensive hobby that takes up a lot of space if you do it at home. I was extremely happy with the preview I played, and I am looking forward to playing more once it launches.

Screenshots

Friday, November 26, 2021

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