Beers and Beards

Chapter 65: Under Pressure

“Whoof.” I gently placed the heavy crate down next to a fermenting tank in the Thirsty Goat and stretched my back. I levered it open with a crowbar and chortled. “Science rules!”

Then I jumped as Annie peaked around the tank. “Ahh! Annie, don’t do that!”

She ignored me and peeked into the crate, pointing at the squat objects sitting within. “What are those? They look like really big potion bottles, or really small milk jugs.”

“Uh, they sort of are. They’re how I plan to get better fermentation.”

“How do they work?” She picked one up. It was slightly taller than it was wide, and made of a thick transparent glass that tapered up to a fluted neck with a bump in it. Any serious drinker from Earth would recognize it immediately as a belgian ale bottle. “And what’s this thing at the top?” She fingered a wire contraption nestled around the neck of the bottle.

“It’s a lightning stopper.” I flipped it open and shut to show how it worked. The thick wire contraption placed a metal and cork cap over the mouth of the bottle, and then levered down to create a strong seal. It was a style often used for kombucha back on Earth.

Designing a good stopper for my bottles had taken a few days. Cork was abundant in Greentree, but corks weren’t ideal for what I wanted to do here, and bottlecaps required large-scale industrialization. Thankfully, any tinker with half a brain could make a lightning stopper.

“Why is it called a lightning stopper?” Annie asked, popping it open and closed. “Hey, this is kind of fun!”

“You know what? I’m not sure. The original inventor of it was a man by the name of Karl Hutter. At least I think he invented it? He popularized it at a cork competition, and it became a standard form of bottle stopper for hundreds of years. Maybe he called it that because it could be opened as ‘fast as lightning’ or some such nonsense.”

“Well, we aren’t on Earth. You can call it what you want.” Annie resumed pouring over my glass bottles. There were a dozen, and each would hold nearly a litre of beer.

“That’s a good point… I think I’ll call them bucks.”

“Why?”

“Because the buck stops beer.” I waggled my eyebrows.

“What?”

“Gods, I feel old. I’ll think of a good name for them later.” Or not, because I couldn’t be bothered. We’d probably end up calling them Whistlestops for branding purposes.

“You’re the youngest person in this brewery!”

“Age is a state of mind. Give me a hand filling these bottles. You'll need to fill them nearly to the brim.” I demonstrated.

Annie took a bottle and placed it on the spigot at the bottom of the fermentor. I was using the newly completed batch for this. We were out of barrels, and two tanks were sitting full until Balin finished making new ones.

I labeled my bottle ‘1’ with a grease pen. Then I pulled a small box out from under my jacket and opened it. It contained a series of tiny vials filled with clear liquid. I grabbed a vial labeled ‘1’ and poured it into the bottle, then levered the lightning stopper shut. Annie passed me the next bottle and we repeated this twelve times before placing the bottles back into the wooden crate. The lid was nailed back into place, and ‘Bottle Test Number One’ was ready to go.

“What was in the vials?” Annie asked as we looked down at my little science experiment. “And are you planning to sell beer in those bottles? It’s… actually kind of neat! It will make the beer more expensive though." She pulled out her notebook.

“It’s complex, but I’ll be happy to explain while we walk. Your dad said no explosions, so I need to move these.”

“WHAT!?”

“Shhhh!!!!” I looked around. I didn't want to get caught by Jeremiah doing this, since it was maybe a little bit technically against the spirit of our agreement. Not the letter though.

“No walking! Explain first!” Annie hissed, her hands flexing murderously. “I just got put in charge here and you want more boom!?”

“Alright. Alright.” I waved my hand at the box. “These bottles are the solution to your carbonation dilemma. At least in the short term.”

“You have my attention.” She crossed her arms. “How.”

“Getting fermentation just right with open-top brewing is hard. Pressurized fermentation is a lot better, that's what you tried to do by the way, but it can be really, really dangerous. These bottles are a specific design that's good at containing high pressure. Same with the lighting stopper. We'll get to pressurized fermentation eventually, but it’s going to take a lot of time that we don’t particularly have. ”

Well, time we didn’t used to have, but I was keeping my deal with Whistlemop secret for now. The extra pressure of impending bankruptcy was my ticket to making changes in the brewery and I didn’t want to lose that. I felt a bit guilty, but people could get weird about a sudden influx of cash. Like how you were never supposed to tell anyone when you won the lottery. I'd tell everyone after the first new brew was complete.

“Since we can't do any pressurized brewing, and I'm not allowed to add much of anything to the beer, our best bet in the short term is bottle conditioning.” I continued.

“I’m going to guess it involves putting beer in those bottles and waiting? Hey… we could do something like the Whistlemugs with those, couldn’t we?!” Annie grew excited.

“Sort of. It would actually be better if they didn’t turn into collector’s items. We want to incentivize people to return these. To answer your question, you’re correct. Bottle conditioning is a form of secondary fermentation. Secondary fermentation is when you rack -that means pour - your completed beer into a barrel and let it sit for a few weeks or months longer.”

Annie nodded. “That’s how Light Brew works. I don’t know the specifics since we don’t make it, but I’ve heard chatter amongst other brewers.”

“Right, lagers need to secondary ferment in a cold environment for an extended period of time. Any time you do that, no matter the circumstances, it’s secondary fermentation. It does change the taste of the beer though.”

“We don’t want to change the flavour of the beer.” Annie shook her head. “Especially not for my first solo batch since-.”.

“Right.” I interrupted. “That’s not what we’re aiming for. What we want is very little change of taste with a bit more carbonation. That’s where bottle conditioning, priming sugars, and my Milestone come into play.” I pulled an empty vial and showed it to Annie. She took it in her hand and sniffed.

“It smells… sweet?”

“That’s right.” I nodded. “It's sugar vine.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “You and your sugar.”

“Yes, yes, well in this case it’s priming sugar. When the fermentation in these big babies is done,” I patted one of the giant fermenting tanks, “there are no simple sugars left for the yeast to break down. During secondary fermentation, the yeast begins to attack more complex sugars and esters in the barrel. We don’t want that, so we add a little bit of priming sugar to the bottle. Wait a week or so while tha yeasts concentrate on that sugar instead and we get more carbonation and alcohol! Tadah! Fizzy beer!”

“That sounds great! But… beer goes bad quickly when we pour it. Most kegs need to be drunk within a week or two.” Annie pointed out.

“That’s where my Milestone comes into it! When we pour the beer out of the fermenters, it adds oxygen to the beer, which oxidises and gives an awful taste. I have a Milestone that should prevent that, and Richter is working on something that might help too!” I actually had Richter investigating several pieces of magic for me, and I was excited to do my first enchanted brewing! His acquisition of Archie’s Blessing had been lucky timing! I winced as I realised luck probably had nothing to do with it.

Annie tapped her foot nervously. “We usually try to avoid using Milestones and Blessings during the brewing process. It makes a brewery too dependent on a single individual.”

“Do I hear the voice of ‘tradition’ speaking?” I teased.

Annie snorted. “It’s a good reason and you know it.”

“Maybe. I personally think it’s a waste of literal God-given gifts. It doesn’t really apply in this case though. The Milestone is just a stopgap until I can get the technology working. If you lose me, you lose it all anyway so there’s no real difference.” Although I was one to talk. I had [Carbonate] coming down the pipeline with zero intention of using it outside of carbonating my own drinks. I guess I subconsciously agreed with her.

Annie’s face fell. “Please don’t talk like you’re going to suddenly die on us Pete. That’s bad luck!”

“We can reduce that chance by getting these bottles to the cart outside."

Annie grimaced as she helped me carry the box out to an awaiting goat-cart pulled by Penelope. “Just, be careful. If something happens to you, Balin will never forgive me.”

Well that wasn’t ominous at all.

—

“Are these really that dangerous?” Whistlemop asked as he looked over the twelve bottles. Each of them was contained within a separate solid steel container inset with heavy glass panels.

“Yeah. I don’t actually know the correct ratio to use for the sugar vine, so I tried twelve different amounts. Each of those bottles has an increasing amount of sugar added, and some of them are absolutely going to turn into bottle-bombs. The carbon dioxide will -” I paused and glanced at Whistlemop, who was decidedly not taking notes.

“Never mind.”

*Tch* Whistlemop tsked. “I’d be willing to pay you a good amount for the secret to dwarven brewing techniques.”

“Not happening.”

“For an extra ten percent on the Whistlemugs?”

“Not for one hundred. Even this feels like I’m giving away a bit too much.”

“Yes, well, since I have you, I wanted to show you the special edition we were talking about the other day.”

Whislemop brought me over to a small table in the warehouse we’d bought. A cloth was placed to artfully hide an object on top. Whistlemop whisked it off with panache.

“Tadah!”

The glass on top of the table was instantly recognizable as a Whistlemug - with a few changes. The usual image of a winking gnome was still there, but the other side now had the crest of Minnova on it. There were some tiny etchings of drinking paraphernalia and fancy lettering that said ‘Minnova’s First Decamillenial Drinking Competition.’

I looked it over, admiring the workmanship; the Ralphs were great at their job. “Are you really allowed to use the city crest in your work?”

Whistlemop took the mug back. “I have to pay a tax to do so, but yes. Are you sure I can really charge double for these? I haven’t raised prices because I was afraid of pushing customers away.”

“Oh absolutely. Maybe even more.” I waved the worry off. “You aren’t increasing the price of your Whistlemugs, you’re releasing a ‘special limited edition’. With a personal recommendation from one of the top ten drinkers in Minnova.”

“And I can keep doing that?” Whistlemop stared at his reflection in the depths of the glass and I could practically see the greed in his eyes.

“Then it wouldn’t be a limited edition.”

“Ah, then we can only do it once.” Whistlemop sighed. “Though… why limit it to just the drinking contest? I could do one for every holiday! For every local event! I could partner with the adventurer’s guild, or the church!”

“Now you’re getting it! Remember, when this goes on sale I want that poster of me put up on your wagon.” The poster was my first attempt at advertising. Putting stuff up around the city was illegal, but there was nothing stopping merchants from putting up signs on their own wagons or stores. The poster featured a picture of me holding a Whistlemug and the slogan, ‘I use Whistlemugs to speed drink all my favourite Thirsty Goat beers.’

It was a work of art.

Whistlemop frowned. “Will it really help sales?”

I sighed. He still had so much to learn. “I need to talk to you about celebrity endorsement.”

I looked over my experiment and added the final step, though I wouldn’t know if it was successful for at least a week. “[Stabilise Mixture]!”

“You don’t need to say that aloud, you know.”

“Spoilsport.”