Raise a toast to progress! In Manor Lords, crafting ale isn’t just about quenching your villagers’ thirst-it’s a vital step toward growing your medieval settlement and unlocking advanced upgrades. From sowing barley fields to brewing the perfect pint in your own tavern, mastering the art of ale production could be the key to transforming your humble village into a bustling, prosperous town.
Our Manor Lords ale guide will explain all the steps to making your own ale – farming barley, making barley into malt, and brewing ale – and how to distribute it at a tavern. We’ll also explain how to import ale (or its ingredients) at a trading post.
Why you’ll need ale in Manor Lords
Ale is essential in Manor Lords because it is a key resource required to upgrade your burgage plots to level 3, which is necessary for expanding your settlement and increasing regional wealth. Unlike other amenities, the tavern cannot function without ale, making its production and supply critical for village development. Producing ale involves a multi-step process: growing barley, converting it into malt at a malthouse, brewing ale in a brewery (an extension of a level 2 burgage plot), and finally distributing it through a tavern. Without ale, your tavern remains inactive, and your villagers cannot enjoy the benefits that come with higher-level housing upgrades and increased prosperity.
When your Manor Lords village starts out, you’ll only need to give your villagers access to a well to drink from. Once it grows – when it’s time to upgrade your burgage plots to level 3 and get your town to a Small Village – you’ll need to supply them with ale as well.
Making ale – and keeping your town’s tavern supplied with it – is an oddly intense process. You’ll have to grow barley on a farm, have a malthouse running, convert a burgage plot (level 2) to a brewery, and have a staffed tavern. If you don’t have fertile land to grow barley (or just don’t want to), you’ll have to set up a trade route.
It’s a lot to manage, so let’s go through each step below.
Farm barley
To farm barley in Manor Lords, start by building a Farmhouse and then place a Barley Farm next to it to cultivate the crop. Use the Farming menu to create a field in a fertile area for barley, and assign workers to plant, tend, and harvest the barley. This barley is the essential raw material needed to produce malt in a Malthouse, which is the first step toward brewing ale. Efficient barley farming is crucial for maintaining a steady supply of malt and ultimately ale for your tavern and village development.
Farming barley works just like farming any other crop – we’ve got a more detailed guide for farming here. First, you’ll need to find a good spot with the barley fertility overlay – basically anywhere yellow or green. Then, it’s time to set up a few plots.
There’s a couple considerations when laying out your farm field plots. First, remember that a family can tend to about 0.6 morgen of field per year. Second, you’ll have to rotate your crops to keep the fertility up – which is why we recommend making three small plots (about 0.3 morgen each) and keeping one fallow each year. It doesn’t sound like much, but this is enough barley to at least get your ale industry started.
With a farm set up, you’ll just have to wait for autumn when the barley is harvested and can be turned into.
Turn barley into malt at a malthouse
To turn barley into malt at a malthouse in Manor Lords, first ensure you have a barley farm set up next to a farmhouse on fertile land suitable for barley cultivation. After planting and harvesting barley, construct a malthouse near the farm to efficiently convert the barley into malt. The malthouse requires workers to operate and transforms the raw barley into malt, which is a crucial intermediate ingredient for brewing ale. Positioning the malthouse close to the farm reduces transportation time and helps maintain a steady supply of malt for your brewery.
Once you’ve got barley being harvested, you’ll need a new standalone building to process it. A malthouse (4 timber) does just that; you’ll have to assign a family to the job.
A malthouse will turn 1 barley into 1 malt. From there, it’ll head to a brewery.
Build a brewery at a burgage plot (level 2)
To build a brewery at a burgage plot (level 2) in Manor Lords, first ensure you have upgraded a burgage plot to level 2, which unlocks the option for backyard extensions. Select the plot and choose the Brewery Extension from the available options; this requires 5 Regional Wealth and 5 Planks to construct. The brewery extension can only be built on a level 2 burgage plot and will convert all residents of that plot into brewers, dedicating them exclusively to ale production. For efficient brewing, make sure the brewery has access to malt, which is produced from barley at a nearby malthouse-placing the brewery close to the malthouse helps streamline your supply chain. Once operational, the brewery will turn malt into ale, which is essential for progressing your settlement and upgrading burgage plots to higher levels.
Once you upgrade a burgage plot to level 2, you’ll unlock a bunch of new extensions for its backyard industry. One of these is a brewery (5 Regional Wealth, 5 planks). Breweries take 1 malt and turn it into 1 ale.
The only note here is that converting a burgage plot to a brewery converts all of the families living there into artisans – meaning they can’t work any other jobs and they’re removed from the unassigned families labor pool.
Frustratingly, that ale isn’t enough on its own. Ale by itself is just a commodity and gets stored in your brewery’s pantry and then your town’s granary. To be of use to your town – and, more importantly, to make it satisfy a level 2 burgage plot’s requirement, you’ll need a tavern.
Build a tavern
To build a tavern in Manor Lords, open the Residential tab in the building menu and select the Tavern, which requires 5 Timber to construct. For optimal effectiveness, place the tavern near higher-level Burgage Plots to fulfill their “Tavern supply” entertainment requirement and support settlement upgrades. Once built, assign a family to staff the tavern and ensure it is stocked with ale-either produced locally or imported-so it can serve your villagers and help maintain their happiness and approval rating.
A tavern (5 timber) is where that ale becomes useful. It’ll need (at least) one family assigned to it to move the ale from the granary to the tavern, where it can be distributed to the town. That is what will finally fulfill your burgage plots’ (and your town’s) requirement for a tavern supply – a tavern with a steady supply of ale.
As your town grows, you’ll probably need to add more barley fields (and farms), assign more families to the malthouse, and maybe even add a second brewery.
At any point in this supply chain, though, you can always just.
Build a trading post to import barley, malt, or ale
To import barley, malt, or ale in Manor Lords, you need to build a Trading Post, which enables you to trade with traveling merchants. Once the Trading Post is constructed, assign a family to work there and access the Trade tab in the menu. Here, you can choose to import barley from the Crops tab for 12 Regional Wealth, malt from the Crafting Materials tab for 14 Regional Wealth, or ale directly from the Commodities tab for 18 Regional Wealth. Establishing a trade route requires an upfront investment of Regional Wealth and allows you to schedule regular merchant visits, ensuring a steady supply of the chosen goods. This method is especially useful if your region lacks fertile land for barley or if you want to quickly boost ale production for your tavern, though it can become expensive, so maintaining strong exports is recommended to offset import costs.
Sometimes, you’ll start your game of Manor Lords in a region with terrible fertility – barley seems especially fickle – and that means you’d have to put in a ton of extra work to get not enough barley. In cases like this, it’s time to import supplies through trade.
A trading post (4 timber) allows you to import and export goods through traveling merchants. Trade costs Regional Wealth to import and earns Regional Wealth when you export. We’ve got a dedicated guide to explain trade and trading posts (and trade routes) here.
In a trading post’s menu, you can assign a family to work there and then you can switch over to the Trade tab. This is where you can check all of the available goods – construction, crops, food, materials, commodities, and military – and decide to import, export, or full trade (either import or export) them until you have the surplus you set.
For ale, you can import barley from the Crops tab for 12 Regional Wealth, malt from the Crafting Materials tab for 14 Regional Wealth each, or ale from the Commodities tab for 18 Regional Wealth each. Ale requires you to establish a trade route – basically just pay out some Regional Wealth to make a traveling merchant visit your trading post on a regular schedule, rather than randomly.
What secret steps can unlock faster ale production in Manor Lords
Several lesser-known strategies can help you unlock faster ale production in Manor Lords:
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Prioritize Fertile Land for Barley: Start by selecting regions with the highest barley soil fertility using the ’Barley Fertility’ overlay. This ensures maximum yield and reduces wasted time on poor land.
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Optimize Field Size and Worker Assignment: Use multiple small barley fields (less than 1 Morgen each) rather than one large field. This makes crop management easier, speeds up harvesting, and allows for better crop rotation. Assign enough workers to each field to avoid bottlenecks during the harvest season.
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Minimize Transport Times: Place your Malthouse and Brewery as close as possible to your barley fields. This reduces worker travel time between steps, accelerating the entire production chain.
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Import Barley or Malt When Needed: If your region lacks fertility or you want to jump-start production, import barley or malt via the trading post. This can supplement your own harvest and keep the brewery running at full speed.
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Convert Burgage Plots Strategically: Upgrade a Burgage Plot to Level 2 and convert it to a brewery only when you have a steady malt supply. This ensures your brewers are always productive and not idle due to shortages.
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Balance Supply and Demand: Avoid overproducing ale, which can strain resources and logistics. Instead, produce just enough to meet upgrade requirements and maintain positive village approval ratings, as suggested by experienced players.
Implementing these steps can streamline your ale supply and help you reach higher village tiers faster.
What are the fastest ways to upgrade burgage plots for ale production
The fastest ways to upgrade burgage plots for ale production in Manor Lords focus on efficiently meeting the upgrade requirements and streamlining your supply chains:
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Quickly Meet Level 2 Requirements:
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Secure two types of food (e.g., eggs from chicken coops and berries or bread) to fulfill the food stall need.
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Build a Hunting Camp and Tannery early to provide leather for the clothing stall, which is the most straightforward clothing resource.
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Ensure water access with a well and build a wooden church for the religious requirement.
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Maintain a steady supply of firewood or charcoal for the fuel stall.
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Efficient Level 3 Upgrade for Ale Production:
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Construct a tavern and ensure it is consistently supplied with ale, as this is crucial for the level 3 upgrade.
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Upgrade your wooden church to a small stone church and add a third food type, such as vegetables or eggs, using backyard extensions.
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Provide a second clothing stall with finished products like shoes, which can be made via a cobbler’s backyard extension.
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Ensure you have enough resources on hand: 25 Regional Wealth, 4 timber, 8 planks, and 4 clay tiles for each upgrade.
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Backyard Brewery Extension:
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Once at level 2, add a brewery backyard extension (requires 5 planks and 5 Regional Wealth) to begin ale production directly from the burgage plot.
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Upgrade Strategically:
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Avoid upgrading too many plots at once; focus on a few to ensure you can consistently meet their needs and prevent village approval from dropping.
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By prioritizing these steps and managing your resources and supply chains efficiently, you can rapidly upgrade burgage plots and unlock ale production in Manor Lords.
