Pint Craft
Pint Craft Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Components
- 83 Brewery cards
- 25 Recipe cards
- 4 Season cards
- Ingredient tokens
- 45 Base Malt – tan
- 20 Specialty Malt – orange
- 26 Hops – green
- 16 Adjuncts – purple
A full list of Brewery and Recipe cards is provided in the Card Inventory section below.
Game Setup
- Separate the Brewery, Recipe and Season cards. Shuffle the Brewery cards. Deal out 5 Brewery cards to each player face down. Put the remainder of the Brewery cards face down in the center of the table.
- Shuffle the Recipe cards and deal them face up into stacks equal to the number of brewers plus 1. Place all Recipe stacks face up in the center of the table.
- Place the Season cards in the center of the table and turn the current season face up. Put the Ingredient tokens in a spot that is easily accessible.
- Your next step is to name your brewery. Write your brewery's name on a coaster, napkin, or some other object. The brewer who picks the most creative name plays first. *
* You can vote or use any other method to determine the most creative brewery name.
Turn Overview
You take the following sequence of steps on a turn. **
- Play Brewery cards to earn ingredients.
- Use ingredients to put 1 or more Recipes on tap. **
- Draw Brewery cards.
You have the following options for playing and drawing Brewery cards:
- Play 3 Brewery cards. Draw none.
- Play 2 Brewery cards. Draw 1.
- Play 1 Brewery card. Draw 2.
- Play no Brewery cards. Draw 3.
If you run out of Brewery cards, your turn ends and you draw 4 new cards.
** The player who goes first is also responsible for advancing the Season and paying out all bonuses before playing any Brewery cards.
Ending the Game
When you cross the Victory Pint Threshold all other players get one final turn. If 2 or more players cross the Victory Pint Threshold then a Face Off begins and a winner is declared. See the Winning Pint Craft section for additional details about ending the game.
Seasons and Bonuses
Each round of play corresponds to a Season. The player who goes first advances the Season and all pays out all bonuses before playing any Brewery cards. There are two types of bonuses:
- Seasonal Bonus – Some Recipe cards provide extra ingredients on a given season. Seasonal bonuses are only paid if the seasonal Recipe is complete at the time the Season changes. For example, if you put the Spiced Pumpkin Ale on tap during the Fall, no bonus will be paid until the next Fall.
- Winter – Seasonal bonuses are paid out in Base Malts only.
- Fall – You choose the mix of ingredients for seasonal bonuses. The player with the fewest Pints draws an additional Brewery card. ***
- Summer – Seasonal bonuses are paid out in Hops only.
- Spring – You choose the mix of ingredients for seasonal bonuses. The player with the fewest Pints draws an additional Brewery card. ***
- Brewery Improvement Bonus – Some Brewery cards provide extra ingredients every season. A detailed description of these cards is provided in the Brewery Cards section.
*** No Seasonal or Brewery Improvement Bonuses are paid out on the first round of play. If two or more players are tied for the fewest Pints, they all draw an additional Brewery card.
Recipes and Ingredients
Each Recipe card shows the combination of ingredients needed to complete it and the number of Pints it earns. Once you have enough ingredients to brew a Recipe you place the Recipe card in front of you and return the ingredients to the common pot. Only Recipes that are face up in the center of the table can be brewed. There is no limit to the number of Recipes or Pints you can earn in a turn.
A full list of Recipes is provided in the Card Inventory section below.
There are 4 types of ingredients in Pint Craft:
- Base Malt
- Specialty Malt
- Hops
- Adjuncts
Base Malt, Specialty Malt and Hops are considered the Basic Ingredients in Pint Craft. (Yes, yeast and water are ingredients, too, just not for this game.)
Adjunct Ingredients can be acquired in exchange for 4 Basic Ingredients. For instance, if you play a Brewery card that lets you choose 6 ingredients – you can choose 1 Oats (an Adjunct ingredient) and 2 Hops (Basic Ingredients). You may not take Adjunct ingredients as a part of Summer or Winter Bonuses.
When playing the Smash Hit! card a player chooses 6 ingredients. The example on the card shows the player can choose any 6 Basic Ingredients or 1 Adjunct and 2 Basic Ingredients. Smash Hit! reads: "Choose 6 Ingredients. Choose 2 more Ingredients if you have Big Tanks."
Once you have chosen a mix of ingredients, they cannot be exchanged for other types of Ingredients. For instance, if you choose 3 Base Malt and 3 Hops, you cannot later return them for 6 Specialty Malt or any other combination of ingredients.
Brewery Cards
There are 2 types of Brewery Cards:
- Green Brewery cards – These cards have green faces and have an immediate effect. After you play a Green Brewery card, you place it into the discard stack face up. Each Green Brewery card has instructions that describe its effects. Green Brewery cards may impact other players and can change the course of the game.
- Orange Brewery cards – These cards have orange faces and have both one time and persistent effects. After you play an Orange Brewery card, it stays in front of you. The one-time ingredient earnings are listed at the top, in white text. The persistent effects are listed in the center, in brown text.
There are 3 Orange Brewery Improvement cards. These cards provide the Brewery Improvement ingredient bonus of 1 ingredient per Recipe every Season. **** These cards also act as prerequisites to the Brewery Expansion cards.
- Distribution License
- Taproom
- Bottling Line
**** To figure out how many ingredients you get for your Brewery Improvement Bonus, take the sum of these cards and multiply it by the number of Recipes you have on tap. For example, if you have 2 Distribution Licenses, 1 Taproom and 4 Recipes then you earn 12 ingredients [3 Improvements x 4 Recipes = 12 ingredients] at the beginning of the Season.
There are 5 Orange Brewery Expansion cards. These cards provide all the Base Malt or Hops required for a single Recipe. In addition, these cards may also earn the player a Pint. Each Brewery Expansion card has a prerequisite Brewery Improvement card that the player must have. If you do not have the prerequisite then you must use the "OR Choose 2 Ingredients" option. *****
- Dining Room
- Supermarket Shelves
- Restaurant Tables
- Metro Distribution
- State Distribution
***** "OR Choose 2 Ingredients" – this line appears at the bottom of several Brewery cards. If you are unable to meet the card's prerequisite or if you would prefer not to play the card, then you can choose 2 ingredients. If you use this option for an Orange Brewery card, you do not earn a Pint and the card goes into the discard stack.
The Big Tanks card permanently reduces the cost of Adjunct Ingredients to 3 Basic Ingredients. This discount remains in effect as long as you own the Big Tanks card. If you play 2 or more Big Tanks cards the ratio does not change.
A full list of Brewery cards is provided in the Card Inventory section below.
Winning Pint Craft
The table below shows the Victory Pint Threshold (the minimum number of Pints needed to win).
| Players | Victory Pint Threshold |
|---|---|
| 2 | 24 |
| 3 | 18 |
| 4 | 14 |
| 5 | 12 |
| 6 | 10 |
As soon as you cross the Victory Pint Threshold, a Challenge Round begins. For instance, if you put a Recipe on tap in a 4 player game that increases your total number of Pints to 14, then a Challenge Round starts with the next player's turn.
Challenge Round – During the Challenge Round, all other players get one turn to surpass the leader. Play proceeds normally except that the player who initiated the Challenge Round does not get a turn. Tally all Pints at the end of the Challenge Round.
- If only one player crosses the Victory Pint Threshold at the end of the Challenge Round, he or she declares victory!
- If two or more players cross the Victory Pint Threshold, then a Face Off round begins. Players who do not achieve the Victory Pint Threshold are eliminated.
Face Off – A Face Off decides the winner when 2 or more players cross the Victory Pint Threshold. Here is the sequence for a Face Off:
- Advance the Season and pay all Seasonal and Brewery Improvement bonuses to remaining players.
- Play 1 Brewery card. No Brewery cards are drawn during a Face Off.
- Each player earns as many Pints as possible.
- If one player has the lead, he or she declares victory!
- If two or more players are tied, they may elect to:
- Start another Face Off round OR
- Declare the game a tie.
If, at any point during the game (including a Challenge Round or Face Off), all Recipes are on tap, the game ends and the player with the most Pints declares victory.
Card Inventory
Recipe Cards
- American Amber
- American Dark Lager
- American IPA
- American Wheat
- Belgian Trippel
- Berliner Weiss
- Bohemian Pilsner
- California Common
- Dopplebock
- Dortmunder Export
- Dry Stout
- Dunkelweizen
- English Barley Wine
- English Brown Ale
- Extra Special Bitter
- German Pilsner
- Imperial IPA
- Kolsh
- Oatmeal Stout
- Oktoberfest
- Old Ale
- Pumpkin Spice Ale
- Saison
- Scotch Ale
- Traditional Bock
Brewery Cards
- Beer Festival!
- Big Tanks
- Blind Taste Test
- Bottling Line
- Celebrity Endorsement
- Dining Room
- Distributors License
- Dumpster Diving
- Fermenter Explosion!
- Fresh Start
- Hangover Cure
- Local Investors
- Merch
- Metro Distribution
- Mug Club
- New Recipe
- Redistribution
- Restaurant Tables
- Restock Grains
- Restock Hops
- Rodents in the Grain Supply
- Smash Hit
- Special Order
- Spoiled Batch
- State Distribution
- Supermarket Shelves
- Swap Recipes
- Tap Takeover
- Taproom
- Venue