Beers and Beards

Book 2: Chapter 9: Brewing Blues

I spent the next hour or so just chatting with my brother.

Balin was the first dwarf on Erd who gave me compassion and comradeship. He was strong-hearted, kind, considerate, brave, and outgoing. You could trust him to have your back in a scrap, and he couldn’t tell a lie to save his life. He was a bit of a royalist, but nobody's perfect.

I sent Zirce to grab us coffees from Joejam Cuppa and then Balin and I retired to the alley out back. It was nice and cool and quiet, only occupied by a pack of neighborhood cats and the remains of their dinner. We'd been attracting more and more rats lately with all our food, and the massive number of felines blanketing the city were keeping them nicely under control.

“Sooo, Balin of Goldenlight, eh?” I kicked his shins and he grimaced.

“Buncha stupid kids. Coulda gotten themselves killed over our own damn boomdust.”

“Eyech, that would put a damper on things. Buuuut, do you like being the good kind of famous?”

“I love it! What about you, Pete? How are things at tha Goat?” Balin grinned around a sip of coffee. He'd hated the stuff the first couple times, but the addictive nature of caffeine won him over in the end! Muhahahahaha!

I sighed. “It’s going okay. I got one more new brew going but it didn’t turn out very well. I’m takin' my time on tha next one and makin’ sure all my ducks are in a row first.”

“What do ducks have to do with it?”

“Let’s just say co-owning a dwarven brewery while co-owning a glassworks isn’t all it’s quacked up to be.”

“What?”

“My first new brew since New Brew is sitting in a tank right now because it's so fowl nobody can drink it.”

Balin took a sip and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of roasted bean. Joejam the gnome made a mean cup of coffee. “Because it's as terrible as yer puns?”

“I made it with wheat.”

Balin winced. “Nobody's gonna drink that.”

“Yesssss.” I drew the word out in an irritated hiss. “I got that. In the meantime I’m thinkin' about my next steps.”

“Glad ta hear it, but why were ya usin’ wheat anyways?”

I waved my hands up and down. “Well, it’s complicated. It’s mostly because I don’t like usin' erdroot to make beer, ya’know. True Brew has a really smooth, filmy mouthfeel which is just wrong when combined with the sourness of the gruit. I figured that using somethin’ else for the malt would help.”

Balin frowned. “I like tha smooth feelin’ meself.”

“Sure, but you’ve never had different. Do you like the taste and feeling of that coffee now? You used to hate it.” I pointed at his mug. We were consistent enough customers now that Joejam allowed us to take the mugs out. I really needed to get that gnome some disposable cups, or ask Whistlemop to start selling them out of the Emporium. Or maybe not… he’d probably call them something dumb, like Whistlecups.

Balin nodded. “It’s grown on me. It’s got a feelin’ sorta like a combination of wet and dry at tha’ same time.”

“Aye, that’s the tannins, and Erdroot doesn’t have any. I could use fruit to add some but that would change the flavour profile a lot.”

"And addin’ fruit to beer is one step towards radler.” Balin shivered. “I don’t think dwarvenkind is ready fer that, Pete. Give it time.”

“I know, I know,” I waved it off, “so I want to focus on using a different malt instead. Back on Earth the most common malts were barley, rice, and wheat. A malt-house would purchase massive amounts of grains and then dry them in a kiln before cleaning and storing them. The drying kept any fungus or mould out until the grains were ready for the next step.”

Balin frowned. “Actually, I’m pretty sure True Brew has some fungus - er - mushrooms in it. I saw Annie shove some in the secret bittering sack during that last batch.”

I sat at attention. The secret ingredients of the True Brew bittering agent were a mystery I was desperate to solve. “Oooh? Really? I always figured there was some mushroom in it. It doesn’t matter though, my point stands that fungal growth isn’t great for flavour.”

Balin peered into the bottom of his now nearly empty mug and made a sad face. "You were right about coffee, so I'll take yer word for it."

“Why thank you. When it's time to make the malt, the stored grains get soaked and then left to sit a short while to germinate. That gives chemicals called malt enzymes time ta break down some of the cell walls in the grain, which changes the flavour profile. The germination step needs to be done in a cool space because it produces a lot of heat. On Earth it wasn’t uncommon for malt-houses to burn to the ground. I imagine dwarven safety Ordinances and magic keep that from bein' an issue here.” I gave Balin a quizzical look.

Balin shook his head. “Not many fires in Minnova or any other dwarven city. Most o’ tha buildin’s are made with stone, and there’s almost always some aether mage around ta turn all tha air into water.”

“Right, well after the germination step the malt gets roasted in a kiln until it’s somewhere between lightly toasted to almost black depending on the beer. There’s a kind of beer that I want to make called a stout, and another called a pale ale, both of which depend on how much the malt gets roasted. I haven’t bought a malt-house yet, so I can’t control that.”

Balin raised an eyebrow. “Yet? How much gold do ya have now, Pete? Weren’t we completely broke just last year?”

I shrugged. “A lot happened while you were in and out of tha dungeon. Don’t worry about gold, we’re fine. On that note, do you need new equipment or weapons? How about an enchanted axe?”

Balin shook his head. “I can get all me own equipment Pete. Don’t worry about yer brother, I can handle meself.”

Right, one enchanted axe for his birthday then. Which was…

Hrm. When was his birthday?

When was my birthday?

Maybe Annie would know.

Hey, I’m 50 years old now! When did that happen?

It’s kind of weird being an old man but only being a young dwarf. I wonder if that gets easier?

“Pete?”

I shook myself. “Yes, Balin?”

“You were talkin’ about malts.”

“Right. After the roasting step, there’s some more cleaning stages, though I don’t know if dwarven malt-houses do that. The completed malt is sent out to the breweries to be ground in the grist mill and put into the mash.”

Balin tapped his feet for a moment before asking his next question. “Pete, does this whole story have a purpose? 'Cause I could be braiding Annie's beard right now.”

“Because erdroot has no tannins, doesn’t germinate properly, roasts kind of weird, and I hate it. I hate it soooooo much. I would rather eat nothing but potatoes and my momma didn’t raise any Irishmen.”

Balin put up his hand.

I ignored it. “It doesn’t matter what an Irishman is. What matters is that I don’t want erdroot, and I can’t use wheat, or barley either. Because of our stupid, annoying, stomachs!”

“Well, sorry fer our annoying dwarven stomachs. Is there anythin' else you can do?”

I nodded. “The next best thing would be rice or sorghum, but I can’t seem to find those anywhere. Then buckwheat, but same problem. If you find any of those in the dungeon, please let me know.”

Balin shook his head. “Ill try, but I’ve never heard o’ either of those. What am I lookin’ for?”

“Wild rice kind of looks like long grass gone to seed, usually in shallow water. Sorghum's similar, but you'll find it in firlds. Buckwheat is actually a small white flower with kernelly seeds. It looks like this.” I pulled my handy-dandy notebook out of my pocket and showed Balin a drawing I’d made of a buckwheat flower. “This is from memory though, so it won’t be perfect. I can’t even guarantee that it’ll be white on Erd, so just bring me everything.”

“Anythin’ in tha sack I gave you earlier?”

“Sigh, no. I checked. Even gave it a once over with my Minimap. Thanks for bringin’ it though. I want to try some other magical ingredients with my [Refine Brew] and see if we can’t get any other interestin’ effects.”

“Happy ta help, Pete.”

“Happy for yer help, Balin.”

We sat in happy silence for a short while, nursing our mugs and staring up at the permanent twilight that made up the ‘sky’ in Crack. A faint purple illumination from the massive Solstone in the center of Minnova’s cavern bathed everything in a soft indigo glow. Luminescent mosses and small bright stones dotted the roof of the cave far above us like pinprick stars. I absentmindedly rubbed a cat between the ears while it debated between mauling me or leaning in to enjoy it.

Balin eventually spoke up. “Are ya joining up for tha Octamillenial brewin’ contest? I figured it would be just yer style.”

I winced. “Ugh. You need to be a member in good standing with a brewing guild to join. We haven’t made it back in yet. I have a meeting this week with Guild Master Malt to see what we can do. I’m hopeful, but until then I’m just enjoying the down time to try and brew something new.”

“If you’re just lookin’ to make somethin’ new, Pete, why not try makin’ some Light Brew? Tha’ Goldstone’s haven’t ever made any. You might have fun gettin’ it started.”

I nodded. “I thought about that. I’ve actually been working on a tank design for it with Richter and an [Engineer] Whistlemop hired. It should be coming in sometime this week. Maybe tomorrow?”

“What were you thinkin’?”

“I’ve got two plans going right now, one for a pressurized version - “

Balin sucked in a breath to protest but I barreled on.

“- which I won’t be using for a while, and another for an open-top with a pressure release lid. Kind of like our regular tanks, but with a cap that levers up and allows pressure to escape. It'll also help keep any nasty bacteria, dust, or yeasts out.”

“I appreciate that you aren’t usin’ a pressure thingamajig. Why does it need a lid at all?”

“Well, it’s because of how lager - er - Light Brew is made. Light Brew needs to be kept at a lower temperature than ale and fermented for a longer duration.”

“Oh, so it needs insulation and more o’ those fancy coolin’ enchantments that ya got on tha hop-back?”

“Aye! We’ll make a brewer out of you yet, Balin!”

“An axe and some wood or a dungeon is plenty for me, thank you!” He grinned.

I gave a mock sigh. “Ah, what a waste. Anyways, the only thing stopping me right now isn’t the tank. It’s something else entirely.” I pulled my fingers away as the cat finally landed on ‘maul’. I sucked at a slight cut on my finger, and watched with faint fascination as my [Regenerate] Blessing knit the flesh slowly back together. It wasn’t like I was a Wolverine or anything, but never needing to worry about minor cuts ever again was amazing.

“Is it space?” Balin asked, looking around. The Goldstone brewery was large but it wasn’t huge, especially in comparison to some of the other breweries. I’d scoped out the competition over the past few months and several of them were positively massive.

“No, well kind of, but mostly it’s seed - Ancestral Seed to be exact. True Brew ale uses a top fermenting yeast, which ferments the wort and then floats to the top, making that white crust you see in all the completed tanks. Ale yeast needs a temperature of around 18-22 degrees celsius to work properly, and the temperature in the brewery sits nicely in that range. When you want to make an ale, you simply harvest some of the Ancestral Seed from an older batch and pitch it into the new tank. The amount you use is the pitch rate.”

Balin nodded. “And Light Brew doesn’t use our Ancestral Seed.”

I shook my head. “Nope. It uses an entirely different kind of yeast called bottom-fermenting yeast.”

“Let me guess.” Balin grinned. “It floats to tha bottom?”

I gave him a double finger-gun. “Got it in one. It also needs to be kept at a constant temperature of 5 degrees, hence the need for a cooled tank, and requires at least a month to ferment. But new tanks won't matter since we don’t have any Light Brew Ancestral Seed in the first place.”

Balin brushed his hand through his beard, a habit whenever he was thinking. “Could ya’ get some from another brewery?”

I shook my head. “Maaaaybe, but we’re not exactly popular with the other breweries right now. I doubt anyone would give us any.”

“Maybe you could ask Whistlemop…?” Balin ventured.

“Eh, Whistlemop is a smart businessman, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to have him ask tha local brewers for anything but gold.”

Balin snickered at the image of a top-hatted gnome with a rainbow suit and enormous walrus moustache asking dwarves for their precious Ancestral Seed. “How is it workin’ with him?”

I chuckled too. “He’s infectious. If I spend any more time dealing with bottles, and Whistlemugs, and Whistleglasses, my brewer's soul is going to be transformed into a Heart of Glass!”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s a song by Blondie, I -” I cut off, my eyes growing wide.

“What?”

“Balin! You’re a genius!!!”

“What?”

“Blonde Ale! I can make a lager that isn’t a lager! I even have a perfect marketing campaign for it! I could kiss you brother!” I grabbed his beard and pulled him in for a hug.

“You keep yer lips away from me! I only kiss ma Annie! [Basic Block]! [Heroic Moment]!”

Balin tossed me one-handed into the pile of cats, and I yowled almost as loudly as they did in the resulting flurry of fangs, claws, and beard hairs.

I didn’t care, for the first time in a month I finally had direction again. First I needed to see Malt, and then it was time to start operation Strawberry Swing. After my wounds closed. Ow.