Freibier is a classic Novomatic slot as far as design is concerned - the wooden-style reels include lower value A to 9 playing cards alongside a selection of items traditionally associated with a German beer festival. You’ll see pretzels and chocolate which award up to 6 times your stake and a roast dinner which pays up to 10 times your bet.
The best of the standard symbols is the blonde-haired barmaid - land 3, 4 or 5 of these on a payline and you’ll win an award equal to 1, 5 or 25 times your stake. There’s also a wild which can land stacked on the middle 3 reels only - it doesn’t offer any payouts but it does replace all other symbols apart from the scatter.
The beer keg is the scatter - land 3, 4 or 5 of these anywhere on the reels on the same spin and you’ll get a payout of 2, 6 or 20 times your bet and you will trigger the Free Games feature with 12, 15 or 20 free spins. If you land the scatter on 3 or 4 reels, they will be held and the other reels re-spun. This offers another chance to win the maximum amount of free spins. More importantly - when the free spins do begin, a second wild symbol will be added to the action in addition to the standard wild.
The cartoon style visuals are pretty basic but the generic soundtrack is enhanced by the occasional blast from the oompah band. We found Freibier to be a pretty volatile game - we endured some lengthy losing runs but the stacked wilds and especially the free spins with the second added wild offered some decent winning chances.
A beer-drenched night at a bierkeller isn’t exactly the height of sophistication and that’s the case with Freibier - for simple, volatile action then Freibier ticks all the usual Novomatic boxes and is well worth considering if you’re a fan of games from the Austrian developer. If you like the theme, Bier Haus by WMS is perfectly suited.