Coffee and Games

Coffee and Games

We make coffee. Our friends at ancient.games make games — real ones, some older than the written word. Put the two together and you've got everything you need for a good night: something to drink, something to do with your hands, and a reason to sit at the table a little longer.

Why coffee and games

A good cup of coffee and a good game ask the same thing of you: slow down and pay attention. You can't rush a pour-over, and you can't rush a game of Nine Men's Morris either — both reward patience over speed, which puts them pretty far outside how most of us spend an evening these days.

We've always believed the best coffee ritual isn't the one you grab on the way somewhere — it's the one you build a life around at home. Turns out the same is true of games. So we're pairing the two: brew something good, pull out a board, and see where the evening goes.

Meet ancient.games

ancient.games is a small, family-run shop that hand-crafts reproductions of games with real, documented histories — some going back well over a thousand years. Their own words: "Bringing history to life through hand-crafted personal games."

That's a mission we recognize. Skeleton Brew and our sibling brand, Blind Skeleton, exist to give old, overlooked things a second life — forgotten 78rpm records, silent film, pre-1930s entertainment nobody else is talking about anymore. ancient.games does the same thing for board games. Frankly, there's nothing more vintage than a game people were playing before "vintage" was a word.

Two small independent businesses, both a little obsessed with history, both making things by hand — it was an easy yes.

The games on our table

We're playing three games from ancient.games right now:

Hnefatafl — "Viking Chess." One player's king tries to fight his way to the edge of the board; everyone else is trying to stop him. Played across the Norse world for centuries, long before chess arrived to replace it.

Brandubh — Hnefatafl's smaller, faster cousin. Same idea, tighter board, quicker games — a good one to start with. Roots in early medieval Ireland and Scandinavia.

Nine Men's Morris — one of the oldest games still played anywhere. Boards for it turn up scratched into Bronze Age stone and Egyptian temple roofs. It's been called Mill, Merels, and half a dozen other names over the centuries, and it's still just as good a way to spend twenty minutes as it ever was.

Looking for something to do this weekend? We suggest grabbing a coffee (we have a great selection!) and a game from our buds at ancient.games to find a great new pasttime.