Room Escape Artist

The Brewery (La Cerveseria) is one of the best escape rooms in Barcelona. Here are our recommendations for other great escape rooms in Barcelona, Spain.

Salud 🍻

Location:  Barcelona, Spain

Date Played: April 20, 2024

Team size: 4-6; we recommend 4-5

Duration: 80 minutes

Price: from €22 per player

Ticketing: Private

Accessibility Consideration:  This game includes crawling, stepping over obstacles, and stepping up a few large steps.

Mess Meter:  🧹 (out of 5)

Emergency Exit Rating: [A+] No Lock (according to the website FAQs) but we weren’t sure while playing.

Physical Restraints: [A+] No Physical Restraints

For more on our trip to Spain, here’s our field report.

REA Reaction

Enigmik created this escape room in collaboration with Estrella Damm, a lager beer brewed in Barcelona, just a block away from the game. We played The Brewery on our first day in Spain. We delighted in seeing (and ordering!) this beer for the rest of the trip… So 👍 👍 to this marketing play.

The Brewery has been one of the most popular games in Barcelona for a long time… and we can see why.

The combination of challenging, but fair puzzles plus narrative-driven, tactile tasks, gave everyone something to sip on. We always felt forward momentum. The puzzles required teamwork, but each major accomplishment was punctuated with a personalized moment. This extra touch added a lot to the experience.

The ending was high energy… fun into fun into fun.

We can see how this game wowed in 2018 when it opened. In part, the makes it a good first game for an escape room player traveling to Barcelona. It will be a familiar starting place. Today, Barcelona has more to offer in terms of magnificent sets, epic adventures, character building, and emotional height. However, none of those newer games take away from the joy of playing The Brewery.

You are doing Barcelona tourism wrong if you miss Sagrada Família. And you’re doing escape room tourism to Barcelona wrong if you miss The Brewery… it’s only a 10 minute walk from Sagrada Família!

Who is this for?

• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Beer fans
• Best for players with at least some experience

Why play?

• Collaborative, tactile solving
• A silly premised… fully realized
• You earn a beer

Story

The master brewer gave us a mission: reconstruct the recipe of a special beer and then brew it ourselves.

Setting

The game began in a taproom: taps at the bar, bottle behind the bar, and a big menu on the wall. It looked the part. From there, we entered the brewery full of brewery equipment and machinery… which also looked the part.

Gameplay

Enigmik’s The Brewery was a standard escape room with a higher level of difficulty.

Core gameplay revolved around searching, observing, making connections, and solving puzzles… and finally, drinking beer (not required.)

Analysis

➕ Before we entered the game, we were each assigned a bracelet and a role in the beer-making process. Enigmik went out of their way to create personalized moments around these roles. Each player had their moment. This was expertly designed to keep everyone feel special and engaged.

➕ The set was compelling. The set pieces and props all looked like brewing equipment.

➖ /➕ Each new space in The Brewery felt a bit intimidating before we worked out what was accessible. The escape room was non-linear, and we found ourselves exploring and making discoveries, but then coming back together because these puzzles couldn’t be solved yet, or couldn’t be solved alone, or we wouldn’t realize alone that the puzzle couldn’t be solved yet. But we got the hang of things.

➕ This was a puzzley escape room that often required communication and coordination between teammates. The puzzles were generally well-clued, and once we got going, the game flowed well.

➕ The interactions were tactile. We measured and poured. Furthermore, the tasks made sense as steps toward accomplishing our goal.

➖ While the tasks were grounded in the narrative, the puzzles felt more like escape room logic.

➖ We each carried a phone, where we would receive hints. These were heavy around our necks; one would have sufficed for the team. Enigmik could have had a different hint system altogether, they could have easily justified any hint system with the narrative that was already in place.

➕ We enjoyed the misdirection before the opening reveal.

➕ The finale interaction was jubilant! We also enjoyed the transition back to the taproom.

Tips For Visiting

• This game is conveniently located, and walkable from major tourist attractions like La Sagrada Familia. Parking would be a challenge.
• They can give clues in Spanish, Catalan, or English.

Book your session with Enigmik’s The Brewery, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.