Mead – Meeples And Wine

Pattern-Building Perfection: Why Blood of an Englishman Shines for Two

By MeeplesandWine | August 30, 2026

Meeples & Wine Episode 105: Climbing Beanstalks with The Confidence Man Mead & Blood of an Englishman

Hey board game couples and podcast fans! Welcome back to another cozy episode of Meeples & Wine, your go-to board game podcast for couples who love reviewing games with a drink in hand. We’re Michael and Suzy, and today we’re pairing a bold Illinois mead with a clever two-player card game that brings the classic Jack and the Beanstalk tale to the table. Grab your glasses and settle in—this one’s perfect for date night board gaming.

What Wine (or Mead) Are We Tasting Today?

We’re sipping The Confidence Man from Honey Heist Mead Co. in Cobden, Illinois (Shawnee Hills AVA). This Old Fashioned-inspired mead is aged on American oak with cherries, a hint of orange zest, cinnamon, bitters, and sweetened with bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup. Smooth, complex, and a little dangerous—exactly the vibe for a game about facing a giant. Perfect for couples looking for unique mead pairings with board games or podcast listeners hunting for craft beverage recommendations alongside tabletop reviews.

What Game Are We Playing?

Blood of an Englishman (2016) is a pure two-player, open-information card game designed by Dan Cassar (of Arboretum fame), with art by Chris Ostrowski and published by Minion Games. On BoardGameGeek it sits at a solid 6.5/10 with a light complexity of 1.85/5—ideal for couples who want a quick, tense evening without a huge rules dump.

One player is Jack, trying to grow three beanstalks and claim the Bag of Gold, Golden Goose, and Singing Harp. The other is the Giant, maneuvering Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum cards to trap Jack or starve him of the cards he needs. Setup is simple: shuffle the 50-card deck into five face-up Castle Stacks. Jack gets a free “Giantess’ Protection” move, then players alternate. Jack gets three moves per turn to rearrange cards and build ascending beanstalks (six cards + treasure). The Giant gets one powerful action—discard a beanstalk card, shift groups of four cards, or reposition a single card. Win conditions check constantly, so every play feels sharp.

No expansions needed. It’s pure asymmetric pattern-building and variable player powers in about 30 minutes. Great for fans of two-player board games, light strategy card games, and fairy-tale themed tabletop experiences.

Last Call

And for our Last Call Kickstarter spotlight: check out Viva La Dungeon! Rise of the Neckromancer—one book, three heroes, a dungeon you explore with choices, dice, and a story that changes every run. Cool solo/coop storytelling for board game podcast fans who love narrative adventures.

That’s it from us! If you enjoyed this board game and mead pairing podcast episode, share it with a fellow gaming couple. Reach us anytime at meeplesandwine@gmail.com, on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn, or leave a voicemail at (707) 572-5282.

See you next time on Meeples and Wine! Buh-Bye!

All URLs mentioned in this episode notes:

The Confidence Man mead: https://vinoshipper.com/shop/honey_heist_mead_co/the_confidence_man_167353
Honey Heist Mead Co.: https://www.honeyheistmeadco.com/
Blood of an Englishman on BoardGameGeek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/206504/the-blood-of-an-englishman
Designer Dan Cassar: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/53889/dan-cassar
Artist Chris Ostrowski: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameartist/69028/chris-ostrowski
Publisher Minion Games: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/13433/minion-games
Viva La Dungeon! Rise of the Neckromancer Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zontcogamingdivision/viva-la-dungeon-rise-of-the-neckromancer

Duels of Wand and PB&J Mead!

By MeeplesandWine | March 26, 2023

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This week we get our wands out and DUEL! It’s time for Renegade Game’s Duel of Wands, a wand combat game based in the Kids on Brooms world, a collaborative RPG where witches and wizards in training at a magical school where anything could happen! Promising theme, sounds like something that could make a popular movie or book series, someone should get on that.

We’re also tasting Broken Brix‘s PB&J Mead, made locally in St. Charles, IL, and also where we buy our brewing equipment for our first batch of Blueberry Mead! If you’re looking for gear or advice, this is a great place to go!

We’re also going to be at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this weekend! We’ll be touring the dealer hall and demoing games to talk about when we’re at the Bonus Stage later that day! (3:30!) We’ll do some Q&A about gaming and podcasting, review a game we demoed, teach you how to do a wine tasting and have some goodies to hand out! We hope to see you there!

If you’ve got a game that you’d like us to demo get in touch at meeplesandwine@gmail.com, at our Twitter (@Meeplesandwine) or Facebook or if you’d like to leave us a voicemail you can go to

https://www.speakpipe.com/MeeplesandWine or call at (707) 572-5282!

You can also check out our quicklinks page! https://podcast.show/meeplesandwine/

Meeples & Wine 19 – Food Games & More Mead!

By MeeplesandWine | November 23, 2022

Tonight we discuss tabletop games that have a theme of food! Thanksgiving is just a couple days away and we’ve gotten our baking needs bought, well, except for heavy cream. I don’t care if it’s grass fed, organic, only got sun from the west, the name of the cow was “Loretta”, I’m not paying $6.50 for a pint of cream. – Michael. We’re sipping Chaucer’s Mead (with the spice bag) hot tonight, so we’ll see where that takes us, it’s from Bargetto Winery by the way. But on to the games! Food themes is where we’re at, and we’ve already talked about Sushi GO!, so that’s off the table. Point Salad isn’t though, and toss that in with some others like Turkey Day!

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If you’ve got a game that you’d like us to demo get in touch at meeplesandwine@javakat.com, at our Twitter (@Meeplesandwine) or Facebook or if you’d like to leave us a voicemail you can go to https://www.speakpipe.com/MeeplesandWine!