Alehouse

Description
The Alehouse is similar to a modern-day pub or restaurant. It can serve food and alcoholic beverages. In order to produce alcoholic beverages, it must first have the Brewing Cellar upgrade. When purchased, the alehouse comes with two employees and a cart.

Strategy: Not only are goods produced in the Alehouse sold in the market, but citizens nearby will purchase goods directly from storage at a good price (better than the sell price at the marketplace, in fact). The townsfolk also seem to purchase the best quality items that you have on hand, so it is a good idea to produce mead and soup, rather than ale and porridge. Fish stew is somewhat difficult to produce, due to the large amount of fish required relative to the small amount of meat needed for soup. Since these two items have the same production time and roughly the same value, it is better to stick with soup.

Sales directly from inventory may be increased by assigning a worker to entertain patrons. It is difficult to say for sure how much this increases sales, but it seems to be worthwhile if you have a fully-staffed Alehouse. As an added benefit to owning an Alehouse, anyone who is working in the Alehouse gets the "Warm" status without needing to worry about coats, which are often hard to come by. Food is also plentiful, so keeping workers and the player character in good health is very simple.

Goods produced in the Alehouse share many of the same materials and can be categorized as those that require milk and those that require barley. In a large town with more than one Alehouse, these ingredients will be the biggest limitations on your ability to produce efficiently. It is therefore recommended to buy out the entire stock of milk and barley from your local market as soon as more becomes available. This limits the productivity of your competitors and ensures that your own productivity is not hampered by lack of materials. Merchant Camps are also your friend, and you will want to make sure that you upgrade your cart so that you can send the horse out on its own to get to the traveling merchant before the stock of milk and barley vanishes.