Ale Abbey Early Access Review – Holy Mother Of The Hops!
Move over, AAA games—there’s a new contender in town, and it lets me drink and brew beer, all in the name of the church. With hands raised like a gospel choir, I craft my first batch of swill. Our Holy Mother of the Hops has blessed us today. Let’s get drunk and recite 14th-century prose.
As I mentioned in my demo impressions, it’s rare to find a game that perfectly caters to your esoteric enjoyments. Ale Abbey fits that mold for me. Armed with a real-life ale and a mild buzz, I sat down to indulge in a game that I’m still shocked exists.
Early Access Caveats
Let’s address the obvious—Ale Abbey is in early access. Reviewing an early access game always comes with some caveats, but I usually approach them with a simple question: Should you hop in now or wait?
Some early access games suffer from lazy development, with updates rolling in at a glacial pace. Not here. The game launched on February 18th, and within just 10 days, the devs have already released six patches. That’s impressive.
Running Your Holy Brewery
In Ale Abbey, you play as the all-powerful overseer of an abbey tasked with brewing beer, keeping monks and nuns happy, balancing finances, shipping brews to nearby villages, and perfecting recipes—all while maintaining your holy sanctuary. From the get-go, the game does a solid job of walking you through the basics. The tutorial is a tad long, but it strikes a nice balance—not too hand-holdy, but not overwhelming either. Just right. Like a gentle but firm handshake.
Now, let’s talk about the true stars of your ale-filled monastery—the monks and nuns. They make an absolute mess of the place. It’s as if they throw raves once the sun goes down, like a 14th-century Kenny Chesney. But worse, they stop brewing at night! I DON’T CARE IF YOU CAN’T SEE—STOP PARTYING AND BREW THAT BEER, YOU WENCHES.
That said, keeping your drunken disciples happy is fairly straightforward. They need beds, tables, and a clean environment because, as I mentioned, they’re absolute slobs. Oh, and their inebriation levels? Gotta keep those at the perfect sweet spot. Have you ever played a game where your potential employees have an inebriation stat? I sure hadn’t—until now. But now, every game needs an inebriation stat if it’s a sim. XCOM 3? Soldiers better come with an inebriation stat. Animal Crossing? That too.
As your operation grows, so does your staff. You’ll pick from a list of candidates, each with different stats like intelligence, brewing skill, and, most importantly, their ability to brew something that doesn’t taste like Bud Light. Check out my video review below!
A Light Belgian Ale
At its core, Ale Abbey follows a simple but engaging gameplay loop. Seasons change, and so do the beer preferences of nearby towns. You’ll also receive contracts with specific conditions—certain types of beer, specific quantities, and deadlines. Once you get into the rhythm, it’s easy to lose yourself in the cycle of brewing, perfecting recipes, and shipping orders.
However, after about five or six hours, I’d seen the full extent of this loop. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does highlight some areas that need refinement.
For starters, the tutorial, while informative, drags on longer than necessary. It introduces essential mechanics like hiring monks, researching abbey upgrades, crafting beer recipes, and dealing with pesky thieves (spoiler: just give them beer—because that’s how we solve all of life’s problems).
The biggest issue? The game randomly removes town contracts during the tutorial and story segments. If you don’t have enough money for the next required upgrade, and the game suddenly stops offering contracts, well… tough luck. You’ll be forced to grind for an hour to earn the same amount you could have made in ten minutes with contracts. There was one moment where I was tasked with building a cellar. But prior to receiving that objective, I splurged on building some lights so my monks could see. Because of that, the simple task of building a cellar took me 30ish minutes to save up for as opposed to 15 seconds. These arbitrary roadblocks definitely soured my saison.
That said, when the beer is flowing and the contracts are rolling in, Ale Abbey shines. It’s easy to slip into a “just one more day” mentality—or, in my case, a “just one more beer” mindset. That’s where the game’s magic lies—the constant loop of brewing, creating, and delivering. When you hit that groove, an hour disappears in the blink of an eye.
A key magic of the game is attempting to perfect a beer recipe. It’s up to you to balance the necessary ingredients to create something special. Which is easier said than done. At the start, I truly was making swill. But by the end, I felt I had enough of a grasp on the system to deliver a beer worthy of my own taste buds. Perfecting recipes is definitely a highlight of the gameplay.
Aesthetic & Presentation
Helping that immersion is Ale Abbey’s phenomenal presentation. The design, music, and UI are all top-tier. The game’s stained-glass-inspired art style is absolutely gorgeous, perfectly capturing the medieval setting without feeling repetitive or generic. Some games reduce medieval aesthetics to drab browns and grays filled with stereotypical music—this one doesn’t.
Recently, a game like Pentiment set the standard for how a game in this time period should look and sound. Thankfully, Ale Abbey avoids being reductive in this category.
Current Quirks & Issues
While the game is off to a great start, there are a few quirks that need ironing out:
- Extra Hiring Feels Unnecessary Early On – Many rewards let you hire more workers, but for most of the tutorial, you can only have one brewing station. Why would I need extra hands if they have nothing to do except drink my delicious beer?
- Contract Disappearances – Sometimes, town contracts vanish during the tutorial, leading to frustrating, unnecessary grinding.
- Limited Customization – More customization options would be a welcome addition. Thankfully, the devs have this on their roadmap.
- Lack of Key Remapping – The devs have said this is coming in the future, but as someone who is debilitatingly left handed and uses a land handed mouse…I have to take off points here for accessibility.
As of writing, the devs have not released an Early Access Roadmap. But the current planned additions are:
- Key mapping and remapping.
- Adding keys for missing features like fast forward time.
- Slight redesign in recipe creation and brewing time to speed up the earlier ones, leading to a general increase of the impact of the Fermentines’ skills
- Smarting-up of the way Fermentines’ stats improve based on their tasks
- Adjusting the satisfaction of early hired monks
- Adding missing notifications and adding proper reaction to notifications clicks
- Allow to see which monks are hired as researchers and custodians and also the details of those to be hired
- UI changes to cover for texts overflow in localized languages
- Redesign of the UI for ales stored in barrels and preventing from occluding furniture interaction
- Various bugfixes and polishing
What I’d Love To See Added
Especially for early access games, it’s always important to leave feedback. You can help the devs make a game better with your feedback. Until we see a roadmap, I’d love to see the following:
- Emergent events in the world similar to Fallout Shelter. These could be events like a bishop visiting so you have to brew extra beer within a certain time limit. The current look of the Abbey eventually does start to look the same and random events could help to make you more engaged.
Verdict – Wait for a Few More Patches
When all is said and done, I think Ale Abbey is worth the $15 price tag—but with some caveats. Right now, you might run into some frustrating moments that could have been avoided by waiting a bit longer. This is a game I want to give a 10/10, but I just can’t.
That said, I do believe that with a few more updates, Ale Abbey will reach its full potential. If you’re a fan of management sims, this one is absolutely worth keeping on your radar. It’s sleek, easy to pick up, and oozes uniqueness.
For now, though? Wait for a few more patches before diving in. But please understand, do buy this game. If not now, then in the future. Ale Abbey is available right now in early access on Steam.
Cheers to the Devs
Huge thanks to the Shiro Unlimited and Hammers & Ravens for the review key—I’ll toast my next few beers to y’all. 🍻
Ale Abbey
$15
Pros
- Oozes esoteric style
- Easy to fall into a "just one more day" mentality
Cons
- Gameplay loop needs some fleshing out
- Sometimes frustrating tutorial
Leave a Reply