Heaven & Ale Board Game

I played this game once, and would not play it again. Each player basically grinds for score, with the only interaction between players coming from racing each other around the board to pick up desired resources. Grind heavy, math heavy, not a lot back and forth. When other players are taking their turn, there's really nothing you can do, and no reason to care until it's your turn again, which encourages players to get distracted. Everyone's score is totaled up at the end and the highest score wins. Simple as that. If you screw up early in the game, there's effectively no way to recover so you're forced to keep going through the motions knowing that you'll never catch up. And it's not a quick game. Seemed like a lot of setup and sophisticated mechanics for something that was ultimately more of a solo puzzle game. If you wanted to, you could play by yourself and use a dice roll to move other players around the board to simulate their impact on your ability to gather resources. I understand some people like this style of game, but it's wasn't for me. Also, don't get too excited by the title, the theme if very weakly tied into the game. There's nothing inherently beer-related or monastery-related about the mechanics, other than the superficial choice of resource names and the game art.