Brass: Birmingham Coal, Iron, and Beer Rules

Most rules questions in Brass: Birmingham come down to where a cube or a barrel may come from. The answers are all in the rulebook, and they are short. This lesson puts them in one place, then shows how they shape the game.

Network and connection are different things

Two words do two different jobs:

• Your network is every town that holds one of your industry tiles or touches one of your links. It decides where you may build with an industry card and where you may place links.
• Connected means a chain of links, owned by anyone, joins two locations. It decides where coal and a rival’s beer can travel, and which merchants you can sell to.

A rival’s canal can connect you to coal or to a merchant. It does not add a town to your network.

Coal: the closest connected mine first

When you need coal:

1. Take it from the closest connected coal mine that still has coal, counting the fewest links. The owner does not matter, and the coal is free. If two mines tie for closest, choose one. If it runs out, move to the next closest.
2. Only if no connected mine has coal may you buy from the coal market, cheapest first. That needs a connection to a merchant location. An empty market still sells coal at £8 a cube.

What uses the coal must be connected to the source after it is placed: the town of the tile you are building, or each new rail on its own. A mine in that same town is the closest of all, zero links away.

The coal market has two spaces at each price from £1 to £7, and it starts with one £1 space empty. Prices rise as players buy it out.

Coal mines and the market

Build a coal mine that is connected to any merchant location, even one without merchant tiles, and you must move as many of its cubes as possible into the coal market at once, filling the most expensive empty spaces first. You collect the price beside each space you fill. If the last cube leaves your mine, it flips and your income rises.

This only happens on the turn the mine is built. Coal never moves to the market later. A mine with no connection to a merchant keeps its coal on the tile, for whoever is closest and connected.

Iron: any works, no connection

When you need iron:

1. Take it from any iron works that still has iron, owned by anyone. It does not have to be close or connected, and each cube may come from a different works. It is free.
2. Only if no iron works has iron may you buy from the iron market, cheapest first. No connection is needed. An empty market still sells iron at £6 a cube.

The iron market has two spaces at each price from £1 to £5, and it starts with both £1 spaces empty. A new iron works always moves as many cubes as it can into the market, most expensive spaces first, whether or not it is connected to anything. Iron pays for Develop actions, 1 per tile removed, and for some builds.

Beer: three sources, three rules

Each barrel you need can come from a different source:

1. Your own brewery. No connection needed.
2. A rival’s brewery. It must be connected to where the beer is used: the tile you are selling, or the second rail of a double rail.
3. The merchant you are selling to. Only during a Sell action, only the barrel beside that merchant’s tile, and only if you choose to use it. Using it earns the merchant bonus.

A Sell needs the beer shown in the top right corner of the tile, if any. If you cannot pay it, you cannot sell that tile. A double rail needs 1 beer from a brewery, so merchant beer never pays for one.

The merchant bonuses: a Develop with no iron at Gloucester (it cannot remove a pottery tile with a lightbulb), 2 income spaces at Oxford, 3 VPs at Nottingham, 4 VPs at Shrewsbury, and £5 at Warrington.

A brewery gets 1 barrel when built in the Canal Era and 2 when built in the Rail Era.

The gift economy

Roxley describes the game’s “robust gift economy,” and this is where it lives. When anyone uses your coal, iron, or beer, your tile moves closer to flipping. When the last one goes, it flips: your income rises at once, and the tile scores at the end of the era.

So a mine that rivals must use, because it is the closest connected one, works for you every time they build. A brewery connected to busy towns does the same. Placing resources where other players need them is often a strong play, not just a kind one.

The flip side: a rival’s resources help them when you use them, and you often have no choice. Coal must come from the closest connected mine, whoever owns it. Iron gives you some say: any iron works will do, so you can drain your own before a rival’s. Beer gives you the most: your own brewery, a connected rival’s, or the merchant’s barrel when you sell.

Five rules that are easy to get wrong

1. Buying market coal while a connected mine still has coal.
2. Asking for a connection to use iron.
3. Using a rival’s beer without a connection, or demanding one for your own.
4. Using merchant beer for anything but a Sell to that merchant.
5. Moving coal or iron to a market after the turn its tile was built.

Keep the teach sheet on the table until these feel automatic. Its turn section has all three resource rules in three lines.