Ale is essential to leveling up burgage plots in Manor Lords. Here, you can learn how to make and provide ale for your villagers.
Food and fuel are necessities in Manor Lords; you will need to provide both of these resources to your villagers in order for them to survive and thrive. Once you have these basic necessities, you can move on to other goods, such are clothing and ale.
In this guide, we are going to go over how you can get ale, which you will need to provide to villagers if you want to level up your burgage plots. This will cover the entire process from growing your own barley to providing ale to your local tavern.
Manor Lords is currently in Early Access on Steam and as such, the content is subject to change. We will update these articles as required.
How To Grow Barley
The first step to making ale is to grow barley. To do this, head to the construction menu and then click on the tab that looks like a sickle; this is the Farming menu. The first option on the list, called 'Field', will allow you to place down a field.
To ensure that you are on the best soil possible, click on the 'Barley Fertility' overlay from the right-hand side of the screen. This shows the best areas to place a barley field.
Be sure to have a farmhouse placed as well. This is where you will assign workers to do the plowing, sowing, and harvesting.
With your field placed, you can click on it and select the crop. We suggest utilizing the crop rotation function; if you grow barley year after year, the soil will eventually lose all of its fertility.
Once your barley field is set, you just need to wait for villagers to finish the farming process. This involves plowing, sowing, harvesting, and placing all the barley into storage.
How To Turn Barley Into Malt
The next step is to turn barley into malt. This is a simple process that requires a malthouse. This building is found in the Industry tab of the construction menu, and only requires four timber to build.
Once placed down and built, you will need to assign some workers. There are only two worker slots at the malthouse, but if you are just starting your ale production journey, this should be enough.
In the future, you can build more malthouses to process barley. This is important if you have a large village with several hundred people to take care of.
How To Turn Malt Into Ale
To turn your malt into the final product, you will now need to add the brewery extension to a level two burgage plot. This means that you will need to level up a housing plot at least once, which just requires four timber and the following requirements fulfilled.
- Water Access
- Church Level 1
- Fuel Stall Supply x1
- Food Stall Supply x2
- Clothing Stall Supply x1
With this, you can then upgrade the plot, which gives you the ability to add the brewery extension.
At this point, if you don't have a tavern, be sure to build one!
Burgage plots with the brewery extension will now automatically turn malt into ale, which is then delivered right to the tavern.
Can You Buy Ale?
You can buy ale from the trading post, but it's important to note that this is quite expensive. One ale will cost you 18 coins, but you will need way more than one at a time to satisfy your villagers. If you just need a few to reach a certain surplus, then go for it. Overall though, we don't recommend this as your only source of ale.
If you happen to have a surplus of ale, you can sell it for the same price. For both importing and exporting, you will need to have a trade route already established. This has a base price of 144 coins.
