Let's continue our anniversary celebration with more game updates and celebration goodies! I expect to hear a few sighs of disapointment with this update because I have not yet added the promised new styles, they are coming 'grasshopper' so be patient with me. I have to get the required new ingredients into the brewing engine first and teach the game what do with them when they are applied to the existing styles... after that I can add new styles. This week I have added the first of the new brewing ingredients, expect even more in the coming weeks. My goal is to have all the new styles in place in time for a big blow out on February 24th. I think there is plenty of new stuff to play with in this patch all the same so enjoy!

Permanent game modifications

• International World Cup Soccer teams added to the collectibles, over 200 new teams!
• 60 new food items to buy for your friends in the pub
• Over 36 new flavor ingredients including some long awaited favorites like "Brett" and "Lacto"
• Introducing beer treatments (treated as a flavor ingredient by the brewing engine), the first being Cask Conditioning

Anniversary specials

• Keg party prizes are doubled in frequency and doubled in size for the rest of the month!
• For the next YEAR... every player who reaches their own one year anniversary will get TWO free label credits for their second year
• Everyone who reaches purple heart level will get an (almost) free TBG t-shirt! (details below)
• Food special, the 6ft Hoagie (or sub sandwich), special thanks to riverbottom for the suggestion

Free Label Credits!

I think its about time that I reward our dedicated players who stay with the game and make it special. So here's the new deal... remember that free label credit that you and everybody gets when they sign up? Well I'm gonna double it... sort of. New players still get 1 free credit, but, stay with us for a year and I'll give you two more free ones on your anniversary! That means that all of you players who are just now starting to get the 'Expired label/credit' pop-up warning need not fret about it. You can use one of your new credits to renew if you like and the other for a new label or anything else in the game that requires credits. Don't like your old label? You can start two new ones! The choice is yours. For those players whose anniversary is in February or March, and for the original beta testers who signed up even earlier your new credits will be distributed later in the week. Enjoy!

t-shirt giveaway!

To qualify just send me an email after you obtain the purple heart status and tell me the time and date that you reached it so I can verify. Also provide your address for shipping and an indication of your desired size, we have S,M,L, and XL adult men's sizes and that is only while supplies last. So what's the catch? Well, I don't want to pay shipping, so I'll make a deal with you. Buy at least 1 label credit during February for $9 or more and I'll consider that payment for shipping. And you can keep and use that label credit any way you like! I think that is pretty reasonable, don't you? This offer is only good while supplies last and it is limited to 1 shirt per player. (Already bought a label credit this month? That counts too! Just collect that new purple heart and send me that email)

New ingredients

I know many of you are dying to get to the new styles and the new brewing ingredients. All I can say is... "patience grasshopper", these things take time and will unfold as they may. But you will have a lot of new stuff before the month is closed, take my word for it. For now you should just get started to unlocking the goodies below, this week I have added 36 new flavoring ingredients. I confess that some of these are bizarre and I wouldn't personally make beer with them. For all of these flavors, strange or whatever, I did find examples out there in the wide world of beer so they are now part of our game too. Take a deep breath and...

Let's face it, there are only so many things that make sense in a bottle of beer so some of the new flavors are getting strange. You will also note that I have included 4 yeast/microbe 'flavors.' While not actually a 'flavor', these ingredients will definitely change the character of your beer and they are required for certain styles. Similarly new brewing 'treatments' such as Cask conditioning are included as a flavor as well. While all of these are not strictly brewing ingredients, they are included in the 'flavor' category because that's the easiest way for the game's brewing engine to handle them. Some of these flavors can occur naturally while brewing and are considered an absolute disaster and should be avoided in most styles, Acetobactor for example. At the same time this ingredient and the others are important for the new sour beer style(s) that will be available soon. Also look to the coming weeks for new malts, hops, and yeast for your brewing pleasure.

-Robc

P.S. The 'Ordering too fast' and 'Your order was lost' messages should now only appear when that in fact is the case, you should see much less of the waitress from now on, I know you will be dissapointed so sorry about that. Why don't all beer servers lean over like that when they deliver our beer? :D