Beers and Beards

Chapter 74: Cauldron Bubble

We looked down into the bubbling vat of the open-top fermenter. The Kr?usen was foaming and bubbling merrily, a clear sign of a healthy yeast culture. The problem was…

“It’s fermenting too fast.” I said, giving it a stir with the ladle.

“It started this morning. The Ancestral Seed shouldn’t be so thick already, and the bubbling is far too vigorous.” Annie said, wringing her hands. “What’s happening?!”

I was worried enough that I didn’t even care about the awful name.

“We didn’t do anything that should be causing this. Even if it was a yeast infection, it should be causing the fermentation to fail, not speed up.”

“So what is it!?” Annie asked again, beginning to hyperventilate. I looked at her sharply, and realized her face was turning white; she was going into shock.

“Bran!” I called. “I need you, get in here!”

Bran peeked his head in through the door from the pub. “I thought I wasn’t allowed in here yet. Somethin’ wrong?”

“Yes. I need you to go get a bag. Make Annie breathe into it. Annie, go with Bran. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s going wrong.”

“Oh Gods. I can’t have it all go wrong again.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as Bran led her away.

I turned back to the tank and gave it another spin with the ladle.

Over my lifetime, I had hundreds of failed brews. I suspected the average dwarven brewer saw even more. There were dozens of reasons a brew could fail, but they all had certain tell-tale signs.

I gave the brew another stir, watching the colour and texture of the Kr?usen. It had the thick white-cheeselike consistency of a healthy batch, and none of the signs of a yeast infection. That was a good sign, since it indicated our sanitization efforts were doing their job.

The next step would be to check the pH and specific gravity, which would give me the rate of fermentation. Unfortunately, I couldn’t measure pH or specific gravity without the proper tools. For the umpteenth time I cursed the stagnation of the brewing profession. Even if they didn’t want to change their precious brew, they could have at least improved how they made it!

Bran came back in. “I’ve got her propped up in one of my booths. She’s huffin’ into a burlap sack. Dunno what that’s supposed to do, though.”

“Maybe nothing, but it gets her out of here. Keep an eye on her. Is anyone else in the brewery right now?”

“No. Everyone went out after lunch and hasn’t come back yet.”

“Where’s Jeremiah?”

“I haven’t seen him all day.”

“John?”

“Left with Johnsson for some family bondin' time.”

I grit my teeth; I knew where everyone else was. They were probably yucking it up in my tenement room after they’d yanked my chain. I took a deep breath. It had been a good prank, and they couldn’t have known an emergency like this would pop up. It was fine, I could deal with it.

“Keep an eye on Annie. When she’s well enough to leave unattended I want you to run to my place. Do you know where it is?”

“No, but I can ask Annie.”

“Alright, go.”

He went. I looked around the brewery and began to methodically check every tank. They all showed the exact same symptoms: overly thick Kr?usen, far too much bubbling, and a slightly vinegary scent. I decided to go through my own personal ‘Help! Help! My batch is bad!’ checklist.

Heavy Kr?usen could mean too much sugar in the wort, a chemical imbalance, or a high temperature. The usual solutions were to add more water, use softer or harder water, or buy fancy, expensive, useless, chemicals from the craft-brew store. As for temperature…

I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a finely crafted meat thermometer, and gave it a thorough wash. I dunked it into the brew and waited a few seconds. It read… hot. Fermenting beer had a temperature of 20-22℃ and this was fermenting at closer to the dwarven equivalent of 25℃. That was hotter than the room, which meant something was wrong with the brew and not the surroundings.

I looked around the room. Every tank in the building was doing this. All fourteen of them. That eliminated any kind of contamination caused by dropping something into one of them.

Chilling the wort wouldn’t cause this, and removing the cold break proteins that fell out shouldn’t be a problem either. Same with the rest of the hopback processes. A bad sanitizer could cause it, but we only used boiling water! I growled with frustration and moved on.

Next on the checklist was the smell. A vinegary scent like that was caused by excess acetic acid in the beer. Acetic acid was a completely normal part of regular beer, and usually didn't cause any problems. Heck, most lambic beers were notable for their high acetic acid levels. It didn’t mean the beer was ruined, just that something was wrong. If it smelled like throw-up or mouthwash it meant the beer was bad, but most ‘food’ smells like vinegar, apples, butter, or bananas just meant an imbalance of some kind. Some ales or lagers even aimed for those smells; True Brew had a smell closer to cheese. The cause for the vinegar smell was most likely the higher temperature.

The last symptom was the bubbles, a sign of rapid breakdown of the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. That was - again - contamination, too much sugar, or high temperature. I couldn’t do anything about contamination right now, so I focused on temperature.

A high temperature was most often caused by a poor pitch rate. Pitch rate was determined by the amount of yeast added to the wort. A low pitch rate could cause the fermentation stage to fail completely, while a high pitch rate could result in higher temperatures and a faster fermentation.

This looked like a high pitch rate. Which made no sense. A high pitch rate in all fourteen tanks was unlikely, but we had changed the brewing process enough that the old pitch rate might be wrong.

I almost laughed at my own desperation. This was the first ‘bad batch’ I’d fretted over in decades. A failed brew was just one of those things, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so invested in a single brewing. My promise to Jeremiah was upping the emotional ante a bit too.

“Pete.” Annie came back through the door. “I sent Bran to go fetch everyone. Talk to me, what’s happening?”

I looked at her with concern. Her face was still a bit white, but was regaining colour quickly. “Are you feelin’ a bit better? If you get faint I’m going to need you to sit back down.”

“No, I’m fine. I just… had a bit of a flash-back. This is my brewery, and I need to know what’s going on.” Her voice grew firm.

I nodded, happy to oblige. “It’s a high speed, high temperature fermentation.”

She came up alongside me and took the ladle, stirring a tank for herself. “Any idea what might have caused it?”

“Either we added too much... Ancestral Seed. Or there was some kind of contamination. Those are the only things that make sense.”

Annie brought some of the Kr?usen to her mouth and gave it a smell and a lick.

“It tastes fine, and the colour is right, but the smell is wrong.”

She hopped down and walked around the brew-room, examining every surface and peeking into the tanks. I followed after.

“I used the regular amount of Ancestral Seed. Could the hopback have changed the amount required?”

“Honestly? Maaaaybe? I really, really, doubt it though. Contamination makes the most sense.”

“Why? Are there any contaminants that would result in a good, but too quick, fermentation? I’ve never seen anything like this.”

I sighed. “Honestly Annie, you haven’t seen anythin’ like this because you haven’t been experimenting with your brewing enough. I’ve seen so much stuff like this that there are almost too many possibilities.”

“Give me some.”

I began counting on my fingers. “Contaminated wort. I know there have been difficulties with the erdroot supply chain, and that seems the most likely.

Next is the water. We’re underground so some kind of mineral contamination is always a possibility. That would help explain the vinegar smell. Mineral oil could cause bubbling, since oil increases fermentation rate.

Then there is contamination of the cleaning supplies. All things considered, that seems unlikely.

The last possibility would be contamination of the bittering agent, but I don’t know enough about that to comment on it.”

Annie waved her hand dismissively. “Dad gets a lot of the ingredients for the bittering agent from local [Alchemists]. I would make that the least likely.”

“Okay, that leaves the water and the erdroot.”

Annie grabbed an erdroot from a nearby sack and gave it a bite. I swore.

“By all the Bits of the Gods, Annie! We’re discussing if those are contaminated! Don’t EAT them!”

“It tastes fine.” She said flatly.

“It could be a bacteria that you can’t taste, or a wild yeast, or a chemical it absorbed while it sprouted! No, stop that, no more!” I grabbed her hand before she could take another bite out of it.

“Fine. Let's get an [Alchemist] to test the water."

"Okay. If that’s the problem there are chemicals we could add to offset that. They would change the taste of the beer though, and we wanted to avoid that.”

There was a *bang* as the door to the brew-room from the foyer flew open. Aqua, Balin, and Richter tumbled in.

“What’s happenin’?”

“Annie, are you alright!?”

“Pete! Can I halp!?”

“Balin!” Annie ran over and embraced her beau. He stroked her hair as she gasped into his chest. Then he hollered as she grabbed both ends of his handlebar moustache and stared into his eyes.

“Not the moustache again!”

She twisted a bit and his shriek fell to a whimper. “Balin, I need you to take a bucket of our water to the nearest [Alchemist] and ask them to test it for hardness and contamination. Take some gold and do it, now.”

“No, wait.” I blocked him as he went to grab a bucket. “We don’t want people to think there’s something wrong with our beer. Go to an [Alchemist] on the other end of town. No, wait. Drum, go ask for Drum at the Rusty Battleaxe.”

“That bastard?” Annie scoffed.

“He’s a friend through Sam.” I explained. “I trust him, sort of.” Well, he’d helped me with a kinda-maybe-kidnapping so I was already kind of screwed if he chose to stab me in the back. Not that Annie needed to know that.

“Ugh, fine. Go to Drum, Balin.”

“Aye, I’m gone.”

While the three of us conferred, Richter moved around the tanks and Aqua clambered up into the rafters. She methodically poked around the dark, but clean, corners of the ceiling.

“Hey!” She called down; a blue fairy hanging above the brewroom.

We ignored her, busy with our own conversation.

“Hey, listen!”

We all looked up.

“Pete, Annie, you need to see this!”

—

“What is that?” Annie muttered.

I frowned. The angle of the light up here caused the tanks below to take on a slightly rainbow sheen. It wasn’t visible from the ground, but from up here we could see an odd shimmer over all the tanks.

“It looks like pellicle, or oil contamination? But… weirder?”

“What’s pellicle?” Aqua asked.

“It’s like cold-break. Except while cold-break is a clump of proteins that falls out during chilling, pellicle forms a biofilm on the surface of fermenting beer. It’s a sign of spoilage. But that isn’t what this looks like - this looks more like a weird kind of oil contamination.”

“Would that cause what we’re seeing?” Annie asked, hope in her voice.

“Like I said earlier, oil acts as a catalyst that increases the rate of fermentation. It helps the yeast consume sugar faster. It would absolutely cause all the different symptoms we’re seeing. It's just abnormally fast, and it's making so much Ancestral Seed that it's just... like… magic...” I petered off as I considered a terrible possibility.

I leaned down and shouted at Richter. "Yo! Can you use yer fancy new magic eyes?"

Richter called back. “Aye - Hey! Ah’m sensin' weird mana comin' from dis one! I don’t tink that’s supposed to be happenin’?”

“WHAT!?” We all chorused and rushed back down.

—

“Da strange mana is in all fourteen tanks.” Richter stated, coming down from the catwalk.

“Is that normal, Annie?” I asked. I wasn’t an expert on this by any means.

“I doubt it. Aqua, were there any magical ingredients in our supplies? Or anything we purchased from someone that might have accidentally got in?”

“No.” Aqua shook her head. “No, absolutely not.”

“Damnit!” Annie slammed her fist against the side of a tank. “I can’t believe this! Is it really the Ancestors cursing my brew!?” There was a hushed silence as we all fell deep into thought.

There were a lot of things I could help with, but this was outside my purview. Richter would be far more helpful, and even he didn’t know what to do. His primary fields of study were magical constructs and mana diagrams. If only I had [Pete’s Poor Manasight]... I did a quick [Flash of Insight] as a habit, just in case it -

“[REFINE BREW]!!!” I shouted, startling everyone. “My new Blessing consumes magical ingredients in alchemical concoctions!”

"That's right!!" Annie gasped. “What does it say, exactly?”

I pulled it up and read aloud.

[Refine Brew] - You are able to refine and stabilize a container of alchemical liquid with a touch. If the brew contains any unstable magical aethers they will be forced into equilibrium. The brew will become more nutritious and have a longer shelf life.

You can use this ability once per second.

“Will it work?” Aqua asked.

“Who knows!?” Annie moaned, “Nobody’s ever done anything like this with beer before! Normally we’d just scrap it! I just don’t want to lose my first batch!”

“It may be betta to jast let it go?” Richter said hesitantly.

“Not without trying this first. Pete, do it.” Annie said with conviction.

I pressed my hand up against the side of the tank. “Okay, here goes. [Refine Brew]!”

Nothing happened.

“It’s completely unnecessary to say Blessings aloud.” Aqua muttered.

Then I got the prompt.

*Bing!*

Milestone Used

Combine [Unrefined Lily-Leopard Liver Oil] with [Beer]?

Do you accept?

Yes/No

I hit ‘yes’ and the prompt disappeared as my hand glowed with an inner light.