When Iinterviewed developer Emiliano Pastorellifour months ago, his passion for brewing beer shone through his every word. From his own escapades in homebrewing, to the home library of books on the subject and frequent visits to breweries both local and abroad, this was clearly a man who really loves beer.
Therefore, I was worried that I wouldn’t quite get his game,Ale Abbey. I like a pint as much as the next bloke, whether that be a warm IPA in a corner of a dim pub or a crisp Guinness in a beer garden on a summer’s day, but I’ve never been interested in making the stuff myself. I’ve been around a few breweries in my time, and long ago decided that I’d stick to the free samples and leave making the stuff to the professionals.
But Ale Abbey isn’t just forbeer nerds. The game is immediately welcoming, incredibly funny, and makes the brewing process fun. From chatting with Pastorelli and my own friends’ experiences, I understand that brewing beer IRL is a finicky process that involves measuring acidity, managing temperature, and bottling with the utmost care, all for a few mouthfuls of liquid that’s often a little too fizzy and somehow too sweet.
In Ale Abbey, however, the process has been streamlined and simplified. I was instantly enamoured with the intense punnery of the intro, and theNext Festdemo introduced the mechanics quickly. I took out a couple of loans from a nearby abbey, brewed a few batches of excellent pale ale, and sold it to the masses to kickstart my religious monopoly on the alcoholic beverage industry of the 16th century.
Except my brewers weren’t happy. Their dorms or food or cleaners or something weren’t up to scratch. Therefore, the product they were once so carefully crafting was being ignored. The quality of my pints were not up to scratch for the exacting standards of some of my buyers. I could still shift it to the peasants in a nearby village, but I needed to do something about this situation before it got too serious. I lit some candles, swept the floors (something I constantly forgot to do), and researched some fun additions to my monastery.
Ale Abbey’s management has great depth, but it has one major problem: the beer. I get so obsessed with creating perfect recipes and brewing perfect pints that I neglected the rest of the game. I know things like monk happiness and price negotiations (with local lords as much as angry bandits) are important for brewing good beer and turning a profit, but why would I pay attention to that when I could be calibrating the precise amounts of ingredients for my latest batch of Amber Ale?
I want to be clear that this is a me problem and not a game problem. I didn’t realise how involved I would be in the beer brewing process. How much yeast is needed to balance the flavour of this much malt? Wait, didn’t I have an empty barrel to store this batch in?
Steam images show the places pints will take me:
I steamed through Ale Abbey’s demo in under an hour, and I’m ravenous for more. However, with a vague 2024 release date, I’m a little worried about what I can do until then. I could replay the demo to try to finish with more profit (although over 1,000 gold seemed like a promising start), or I could dive into the complicated, expensive world of IRL brewing.
Is it time to order some yeast and hops online and head to my local B&Q to buy a few barrels? Is it time to test out these simplified recipes in my own kitchen? I’m not quite ready to take the plunge just yet, but I’m standing on the edge. Ale Abbey better release soon, or I’m doomed.
