Beers and Beards

Book 2: Chapter 14: Liquid Gold

Book 2: Chapter 14: Liquid Gold

“And here’s the brewroom!” I waved my hand expansively, taking it all in. The crew was hard at work filling bottles of our latest batch of New Brew.

Moony and Markus were bent together chatting while they used an industrial bottle stick to fill bottles. They looked over and waved, but didn’t otherwise approach. They may not have known who Raspberrysyrup was, or didn’t want to bother their knees with getting up.

The same was true for Richter and John, who were currently cleaning and sanitising the large copper boiling kettle. The sanitisation step was all my idea, and while initially unpopular, everyone was coming around. The relative lack of bad batches definitely helped.

Finally, Kirk was helping Zirce and Emma clean the rafters. Emma was holding buckets and cleaning equipment down on the ground, and giggling at Kirk and Zirce. The large human was holding the somewhat petite Zirce aloft by her ankles while she cleaned the parts he couldn’t quite reach alone. It was a testament to his strength stat, but that didn’t stop Zirce from swearing up a storm.

“By Lunara’s Black Lace, I swear I will bite yer elfin knees off if ya drop me Kirk! Ahhh!!! Aaron’s Fancy Freckled ARSE!” She swayed unsteadily and grabbed onto a crossbeam. Her permed pink beard was flecked with soap, likely from an earlier desperate tumble.

Kirk adjusted his grip. “I promise not to drop you, Zirce, but this would be much easier if you stopped trying to stomp on my face so often!”

The twins giggled, by which I assumed the entire balancing act was in fact, an act. I cleared my throat.

“Ahem, as you can see Berry, we have quite the eclectic crew here. I don’t see Johnsson, but he may just be using the John. Heh.”

“Oooooh, I do see.” Berry cooed. “Or I would, if you took this blindfold off me!!”

I shrugged. “Brewroom rules, sorry. You aren’t a full member yet, we only let Bran in here after almost a year, and Kirk only gets to go blindfold free because well, nobody wants to clean the rafters without him.”

Aqua grumbled. “I still think we could let Rasperrysyrup go without a blindfold.”

“If you want to get in trouble, be my guest.” I sniffed. I had zero interest in getting harangued by Annie over it.

Kirk and the two sisters saw us and waved. Then Zirce stopped cleaning and stared. Then she screamed, and Kirk almost dropped her. Then Emma started screaming. Then I heard another feminine screech from behind us, and turned to see Johnsson returning from the bathroom - wow, that Dwarf had quite the pair of lungs.

And then as one they all screamed. “RASPBERRYSYRUP!?”

Meanwhile, the blindfolded Berry took a step backward. “Uh… what’s happening?”

I muttered, “Your adoring fans,” as the avalanche descended.

—

I was overruled.

It turned out the ‘outsiders need blindfolds in the brewroom’ rule only applied to plebs, and not high-muckity-mucks like Raspberrysyrup.

Zirce and Emma immediately took over the entire tour, merrily leading Berry around to explain how everything worked. Oh, but ‘keep it a secret just between us girls, ok’? I groaned as Zirce went into painstaking detail over how our super-secret hopback worked.

“You fine, Pete?” Richter asked, coming up behind me.

“I’m just pete-chee. Thanks for asking.”

“Dunno what all da fuss is about meself.” Richter shrugged. “I don’t follow da music scene.”

“Oh? You aren’t swayed by her ‘celebrity mystique?’” I asked, making air-quotes.

“Nope. Dunno what a celebrity is, but she’s just not my mug of ale.”

“And you don’t think you’ll ever be her fan?” I raised an eyebrow.

He shook his head resolutely. “Nope, nevah.”

“Uh huh…” I let the silence drag on for a moment, then hit the magic maniac with a bomb. “She discovered a new form of magic.” I twiddled my fingers dramatically.

“What!?”

“Aye, activating spells with sound instead of sigils.”

Aaaaand, he was gone.

Well, it looked like I had some time to myself. I walked over to four new enormous fermentation tanks in the back of the brewroom. They’d been delivered while I was out with my meetings. Each tank was made of burnished brass rather than wood, and had runes etched around their midsection and bottoms. I placed my hand on one and pulled it back with a hiss. They were freezing! I made a note in my handy dandy personal notebook to have them encased in a more insulating material for next time. It looked like I had been right that four was the maximum the Goat could currently hold, though; it was getting a bit tight on the floor.

I sauntered around them, admiring the excellent gnomish and dwarven handiwork on display. There was a clear location for a magic stone to be slotted in for charging, and a spigot specially designed for our industrial bottle stick. A heavy lid sat on top of each tank, with a pressure release valve on top and a cantilever for levering the lid off. The loose lid helped keep the cold inside, but also acted as insurance against boom.

As for what they were for…

“Alright you lot!” I called, walking over to the press of bodies around Rasberrysyrup. “I need her back now.”

“We were gettin’ autographs!” Zirce complained.

Emma hissed. “Spoilsport!”

“She was showin’ me ‘er magic next!” Richter actually whined.

“Later! She’s really busy and I need to show her this. You can all come too, it’s time to talk about the new tanks.”

“Those chilly ones?” Emma asked. “They’re real cold, you could have warned us!”

“Yer fine, ya big baby.” I led the procession over to the tanks. A number of wooden bottle-boxes were collected for temporary seating; Berry at the front, Kirk at the back, and everyone got comfortable. “Now, take a gander at the first tanks for Thirsty Goat’s own Light Brew! Richter, check if these runes are all working while I impressively monologue.” I waved expansively over them as Richter bounded over to carefully examine the enchantments.

“Impressively monologue?” Rasperrysyrup gave a wry smile.

Aqua nodded. “He won’t shut up sometimes.”

“Hush you, I pay your salary. He who pays, says. Now, you all may be wonderin’ why Raspberrysyrup is here, and why I brought you over to the tanks and how it’s all related.”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“The answer is right there behind us! See, I wanted to make some Light Brew, so I had these tanks made. But we’re missing the key ingredient. Then, Balin gave me a brilliant idea!”

“Where is Balin?” The elderly dwarfess Moony asked, holding up a hand. “I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“He’s giving Annie some brilliant ideas.” Johnsson quipped, and the grumble guffawed.

“*Ahem* Balin gave me the idea to make a blonde ale instead of a lager, and that got me thinking about strawberry blondes, and that got me thinking about Raspberrysyrup here! I’ve been trying to figure out how to work with her since - well, for a while now. I think this new ale is a perfect opportunity to launch an advertising campaign. Berry’s music is new and our beer is new, so let’s get all the ‘new’ in one place! Blonde ale tastes kind of like a cross between Light Brew and True Brew and has a colour like spun gold, so we’ll call it Liquid Gold! The slogans write themselves!”

There was a murmur of appreciation, though Markus and John looked unconvinced.

Emma turned to Berry. “How did he rope you into this, Berry?”

Berry gave a malicious grin. “He wrote me a love poem.”

The room erupted. AGAIN.

It took a while to calm things down, though nobody bought my ‘it was all a cunning ploy’ defense. Bah. Humbug.

I cleared my throat and finally caught everyone's eyes. “Can I finish my story now? Long story short, I want to make a blonde ale with these and pair up with Berry for marketing. I think we can do something like what we did with our tavern minstrels during the Feud, but bigger.”

Markus put up his hand and I pointed at him.

He spoke with a slightly quavery Minnovan accent. “That’s all well and good, Peter, but… what’s a blonde ale?”

“And here we go…” Aqua groaned sotto-voce. I ignored her and gave Markus a gleaming smile.

“So glad you asked Markus! A blonde ale is - uh, will be named after its - what I guess will be, bright yellowish-golden tint; it’ll look quite similar to a lager - er Light Brew. We need these marvelous cooling tanks, to make a lager, but they’ll do it fer a blonde too. That’s because a blonde needs a low temperature, just like a lager. Does anyone here know how Light Brew is made?”

Man, a 15 charisma meant nothing in the face of an opportunity to info-dump. Great job Pete, they probably don’t suspect a thing.

John put up his hand and I pointed at him. “The mash and wort steps are the same, but Light Brew is kept cold and takes a longer time than True Brew. It also needs a different Ancestral Seed, which we don’t have.”

“That’s right! A lager needs to ferment over at least a month, and ain’t nobody got time for that! So, we’re making blonde ale instead. A blonde ale uses the same Ancestral Seed as our regular brew, and only requires two weeks of fermentation time!!”

My eyes sparkled as I considered my first brand new kind of ale. Our Ass-Blaster and New Brew were just variations on the True Brew theme. This new beer would be a brand new addition to the beers of Crack!

Blonde ales were considered a bit easier to drink than a regular ale. They were smoother going down, and gave a more refreshing feeling. They made perfect summer drinks, especially with a slice of orange or lemon to accompany them. In fact, they were often imparted fruity flavours with adjuncts during the boiling stage, but I was holding off on that for a while yet.

‘Regular Ale’ most commonly referred to bog standard Brown ale, which was what Dwarven True Brew was. Brown ale was notable for its thick dark malts, and slightly nutty caramel taste. Other popular ales included Belgian ales, old ales, scotch ales, and pale ales. Most different ales were a result of novel yeasts or differing fermentation times. Belgian ale used Belgian yeast, old ale was fermented for a longer time with a secondary yeast, et cetera.

Pale ale was a bit different, as it used a completely different malt from regular ales. Pale ales used, well, pale malts. ‘Pale malt’ and ‘dark malt’ referred to the type of barley used in the malting step, and while it was definitely interesting science, I’d almost never needed to worry about it. I’d contact the malthouse and say ‘pale malt please’ and they’d send it on. I was going to need to buy a malthouse and then test every single possible grain to find which were pale, which were dark, et cetera. I actually had no idea how our erdroots were malted.

Should I be happy or sad? Happy, definitely happy.

“He’s doing the thing again. Richter, give him a smack.” Johnsson snipped.

I ducked and Richter’s hand swung over my head. “I was just thinking. Anyways, what do you all think? The Thirsty Goat and Rasperrysyrup! Liquid Gold is Gold! If we’re lucky we’ll be able to head to the capital together!”

Aqua held up her hand, her face beaming. “Does that mean we’re back in the guild?”

I grimaced. “Ahhhhh… nooooo. But! But! Malt says we can come back if we convince a majority of the breweries to like us.”

“How are we gonna do that?” Johnsson asked.

“Annie practically grew up underfoot for a lot of them,” Aqua said. “We could ask her to make some inquiries.”

I pointed at Aqua. “Great plan! Any more?”

“More new beers!” Emma and Zirce said at the same time, then looked at each other and laughed.

“I agree; I was thinking of expanding to the human or gnomish markets.” I said, shrugging.

There was a sucking in of breath, as though everyone got punched in the gut at the exact same time. Kirk and Raspberrysyrup looked as confused as I did.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You can’t sell tha’ Sacred Brew of tha dwarves to the human lands!” Was what I was able to glean from the din that followed.

“Just like you can’t change the Sacred Brew of tha dwarves?” I said. “Does nobody remember THAT?”

The grumble paused and considered. Johnsson spoke first.

“Well, why not? Kirk loves it, and I don’t see why gnomes shouldn’t be drinking it.”

“I don’t know about that!” Berry said. “It’s a bit too thin for my taste, and I don’t like the malty flavour of ale.”

“Blonde ale might help with that?” I said hopefully. But in my heart I knew it wasn’t likely to be true. The gnomish palette was quite different from dwarves. They preferred a lot of tannins - like in wine, or fruity sour flavours with a little tannin - like juice or lemonade. Dwarves preferred a strong bitter taste with no tannins.

Berry laughed. “I personally prefer a nice margherita myself, or a mojito. Though I do miss a nice light hefeweizen.”

“A what??” Aqua asked. "Dear Gods it's like talking to Pete!"

“Hefeweizen. It means ‘yeast wheat’ but it really refers to a specific kind of unfiltered top-fermented wheat beer.” I said, then stopped.

You could have heard a pin drop. As one, the eyes of everyone except Berry turned to look at a vat of worthless, useless, beer that had been the bane of my existence for almost a month. A vat full of beer that gluten intolerant dwarves couldn’t touch without getting the bad kind of tummy rumbles. A vat full of wheat beer, with a slight amount of tannins, and a slightly fruity taste.

I don't know why I didn't think of testing the wheat beer on Beatbox or Lemontwist already, or heck, even Kirk. My only excuse was that my 'influence' quest specified dwarves, so I'd been hyper-focused in that direction, and only recently started considering gnomes as a possibility.

"But gnomes hate beer…" Johnsson muttered.

"It’s worth a try." I grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Hey Berry, want a drink?”