Kilkenny is a popular Irish cream ale, and with a heritage dated since the 1710 century,it is now easily found in most pubs and bars around the country. Rich, creamy, and with its aroma and flavor of toasted malt, it is also easily one of my favorite.

Now what are the secrets in brewing up a good barrel of Kilkenny? It’s all in the ALEmentary Knowledge. Which incidentally, is also the name of the Facebook application that teaches and challenges you to a test of brewing quality Kilkenny Ale.

And as with any challenge worth its salt, there are prizes to be won, so let’s look at them:

  • Grand Prize – Samsung Galaxy Note 2
  • First Prize – Google Nexus 7
  • 5x Weekly Prizes – Exclusive Kilkenny T-Shirt
I don’t know about you, but I think the Galaxy Note 2 is a pretty sweet phone/tablet, and I certainly wouldn’t mind having it in my pocket (albeit it’s gonna be a bit snug, but I digress..)

In this post, I’m going to give you a short tutorial on how to play the ALEmentary brewing game, as well as some tips to become better at it and hopefully, you will at least beat the score Haze and I managed to end up with – 7790.

The game is a simple ‘complete tasks in one stage, move task to another within time limit’ genre similar to other business/time management games. There are a total of 5 stages to clear, and if you are raring to win this.. you’ve got to nail all 5.

Every stage is important, but some are more important than others.

The stages are:

  • Stage 1: Making Wort
  • Stage 2: Adding Hops
  • Stage 3: Fermentation
  • Stage 4: Packing
  • Stage 5: Pouring
There’s an in-game tutorial that teaches you how to complete each stage, go through that and you’ll be set to go. Now here are some methods we used to improve our scores.

First, don’t bother filling all 9 in one go when you start the game in Stage 1. That would means you put in the mashed barley in all 9 pots, add in the roasted barley and the water. This technique will only get you to about 50 pints before the time runs out.

Instead, focus on getting as many pots brewing as fast as possible, put in all 3 ingredients in one pot before moving to the next. Once the timer gets to red, proceed to the next stage and repeat this process. The idea is to have pots brewing as early as possible once the game starts.

Pro Tip: when you have less than 35 seconds left, don’t bother making any more worts, it won’t get through all the stages.

 

Another dangerous setback is right before you get to stage 3. You may have collected about 4-6 pots ready for stage 3, before you move any pots to stage 3, take a look at the temperature slider and make sure it is still in the green area. If it isn’t, press the burn button until it is green before you move the pots here. A wrong temperature will burn your current pots, rendering all your previous efforts useless.

Pro Tip: Don’t bother throwing away any burnt wort or hops if they aren’t interfering, but you shouldn’t have any burnt wort or hops anyway.

The 4th step would be to move the barrel into the truck. Beware of the slider again, if it passes green the barrel will overflow and will reflect in a lower point score.

Pro Tip: once it hits green, slide it to the truck as soon as possible, this ensures you to have more barrels instead of wasting extra precious ale (and time)

The last step is the most crucial. I always slide it all the way to the right till it hits the Kilkenny logo, then use the slow pour method (slide to left) to fill it up, you have to be careful not to let it overflow. This stage requires some practice, but it is crucial, since it is a multiplier that you use with the score you get from previous 4 stages. I managed a near perfect 99.975/100.

After quite a number of hours trying to beat this game Haze and I managed a total score of 7790. She’s better at making barrels, while I generally do better with Stage 5 pouring multiplier.

To be honest, most Facebook contest games aren’t terribly exciting, but we can’t stop ourselves from playing with this one. It has the element of frustration and excitement all roll into one, we still want to end up in top 10! Just need to be just a bit faster, gahhhh. Excuse me while I continue playing this.

The contest runs from 22nd November to 27th November, 2012, play it here - ALEmentary Knowledge.

Good luck!

By the way, another useless tip – having smaller screen might help since you reduce mouse movement.. hehe.

ALEmentary, My Dear!
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11 thoughts on “ALEmentary, My Dear!

  • November 30, 2012 at 12:15 pm
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    sodeska!!! i’ve been playing the game too, i barely scratched 9000 for a high score 😐

    Reply
    • November 30, 2012 at 12:35 pm
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      fresh: what? almost 9000? I need to confiscate your mouse! lol

      Reply
  • November 30, 2012 at 3:17 pm
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    This is cool. Because if you don’t DRINK the damn beer, you might as well play a game about it. LOL

    Reply
  • November 30, 2012 at 4:06 pm
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    wah, if i played this game for too long, i’d probably develop some serious cravings for kilkenny! 😀

    Reply
    • December 3, 2012 at 8:46 am
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      Sean: is that a bad thing? lol

      Reply
  • November 30, 2012 at 4:37 pm
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    It’s a State in Ireland…Kilkenny! Never seen it on shelves here sifu!

    Reply
    • December 3, 2012 at 8:46 am
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      Kash: oOOo, wrong supermarket la! go to the bars. haha.

      Reply
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