The Belgian Beers Race

The Belgian Beers Race arrives with a promise that is hard not to like: three days travelling around Belgium, drinking as many beers as possible and visiting as many breweries as possible, with dignity left somewhere near the luggage rack. Its theme is more than a joke draped over a game; someone has plainly worked to make the idea function at the table, and it carries the pleasant untidiness of a game brought along for a weekend away.

At heart, it is a bare-bones push-your-luck race. You are trying to make your circuit within those three days, judging how far to press your luck in pursuit of more stops, more beer, and more breweries. It is a race, so everybody else's progress remains in view, even while your own route is the immediate concern.

There is also a touch of set collection: the beers and breweries are not merely thematic decorations, but things you want to gather. Turn after turn, the game returns you to the familiar question of whether to carry on or stop here, without disguising that choice beneath elaborate machinery. That is both its virtue and its ceiling.

It did not bowl us over, but it never outstayed its welcome either; I can easily see us playing it again with the right company, the sort that wants a laugh while taking an imaginary trip. Just do not arrive expecting a tidy euro whose mechanisms click together like a well-made watch. For that evening, spend the money on a crate of Leffe instead.