Brus is a four-hand card game of German descent that was once played in Denmark and Estonia. The game is descended from the oldest known card game in Europe, Karnöffel, a fact testified by its unusual card ranking and lack of a uniform trump suit.

Brus is designed for four players and is played with 36 cards of a French pack, each of the four suits comprising the cards 6-10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace.

Brus is described as an old Jutlandish game, but its rules and terminology suggest that it is descended from the centuries-old German game of Brusbart, now known as Bruus, which was once the national game of Hamburg and which spread across most of northern Europe spawning a family of games such as Russian Bruzbart, Polish Drużbart, Swedish Bräus, Greenlandic Voormsi and others. Brusbart in turn is descended from Karnöffel, the oldest card game in Europe with a continuous tradition of play down to the present day, a fact testified to by "the wildly disturbed ranking order in the chosen suit and particularly by the special role of the chosen Seven".

Swedish-speaking peoples used to live on the Estonian islands until 1944 and, in 1855, were recorded by Russwurm as playing Brus. Although the description of the rules is scanty, the matadors are those typical of the Brus family of games: K♥, 8♠ and J♣. The Sevens are called friare and the aim is to win five tricks, presumably from a total of nine.

Much more detail is known of the Danish variant of Brus which was part of West Jutland's rural culture in the first half of the 19th century. For example, it is described as one of two games played around Christmas time by the older folk in Skanderup in the Danish county of Ribe. It was not played for money; instead the score was chalked up, presumably on a slate or the table. The top trumps were the Spidt (Jack of Clubs), Brus (King of Hearts) and Gal Hund (Eight of Spades). The men would play cards all evening while drinking schnapps and beer and reminiscing about the Napoleonic Wars.

The rules of the Danish game are described in various sources from 1853 to 1973. It is a 36-card, 4-player game, with the same matadors as those in the Estonian game. Players received 3 hand cards and played for the best of nine tricks.

There is evidence that the game is still be being taught and played in Denmark. Unsurprisingly, its mechanics are very similar to its German Schleswig cousin, Bruus, played south of the border in German west Jutland.

The following rules for Danish Brus are based on Smith's reconstruction of three Danish texts dating to 1853, 1920 and 1952.