Beers and Beards Book 3: The Big Brewhaha

It turned out that Rosie actually did have some True Brew squirreled away. Our tavern was certainly in good hands with the talented [Innkeeper] at the helm!

Master Brewer Blunt took a deep drag from his Whistlemug then leaned back with a smack of his lips.

“Ahhhh, Riverside True Brew. You’ve got tha good stuff! Ya know they won tha local Octamillenial contest right? Master Brewer Schist is a [Wizard] when it comes ta brewin’ True Brew!”

I choked on my own beer, a tangy liquid gold that I’d secretly turned into a radler. “WHAT did you say?”

Blunt gave a wide smile, his white moustache dripping wet. “Aye, it can be hard tae believe! Master Brewer Schist is an actual [Wizard]! He started as a [Manashaper] and Specialized ta become a [Wizard]! He’s plannin’ ta see if he can become a [Wizardly Brewer] or summat with his next Specialisation! He’s got some gadgets like yers in his own Brewery, I’ve heard tell. Not that I’ve seen it!”

“No no no, not that part, though that’s super cool. His name. What was it??”

“Master Brewer Schist?”

I clutched my chest. “Ugh, my heart!”

Blunt leaned forward, concern etched in his aged face. “You alright, young Brewer?”

“His name is actually Shits??”

Blunt frowned. “Nay, Schist.”

“Shist?”

“SChist. Tha ‘c’ is silent.”

“Then how am I supposed to know it’s there!?”

“It’s a river rock. What kinda dwarf doesn’t know his rocks! Next you’ll be tellin’ me ya don’t know karst from carts!”

He laughed and I chuckled weakly alongside. I was now truly a dwarf at heart, but I was still woefully lacking in certain dwarfy areas. I knew the Ordinances backwards and forwards, I understood the local economy, I even knew the rules to hitball (they were violent), and I’d been slowly learning the common flora and fauna, but geology just wasn’t a priority yet. To be fair, I had decades of learning to make up.

I decided to change the subject. “The Brewer’s Guild doesn’t have a problem with Master Schist messin’ with tha True Brew?”

“Hmmm… Master Brewer Malt told me a bit about yer problems in Minnova. I can tell ya, young Brewer, if you’d told me a decade ago that tha Master Brewers of Kinshasa would be tryin’ new ways of brewin’ I’d have called ya beardless. But Master Brewer Schist has been a respected Master Brewer fer a long time, and with all tha’ fuss around the contest… well, let’s just say it’s nothin’ close ta what I hear you lot you were doin’ in Minnova, but we’ve loosened tha rules a bit.”

“Is the guild going to have a problem with us?” I asked, in a hushed tone.

Blunt stared at me, well, bluntly. “I cannae deny a little. Yer Guildmaster Malt has been workin’ hard on yer behalf. You’ll need ta thank ‘im. Yer lucky you weren’t run out o’ town soon as you came. That Ass-Blaster is an abomination.”

I couldn’t help myself, I grinned. “I can’t really deny that.”

“Hah! At least ya know. But yer Liquid Gold, and Barista Brew especially, have given the Greybeards some pause. Not few o’ tha families in Kinshasa have sons and daughters in tha Highwatch, and they swear by you. You’ve got somethin’ special, Brewer Pete, and we’ll not be gettin’ in tha way until ya run yerself headfirst down a grike. At least while the King is still sanctionin’ this elfin’ contest.”

Oookay, I didn’t know what a grike was, but it sounded like we had permission to play around with True Brew as long as we didn’t reach Ass-Blaster levels of ridiculousness.

“Where is Riverside Brewery?” I examined the beer in Blunt’s Whistlemug. It looked closer to our own New Brew than usual True Brew, with a bit more carbonation and less trub than usual. I could actually see through the mug; not bad.

“Redwall. Near tha docks.”

“I’ll need to scope em’ out. How do you like the Whistlemug, by the way?”

Blunt looked askance at his mug. “Ach, this? I’ve been seein’ it about town. That Whistlemop has been sellin’ them out of that garish wagon of his in tha Grand Market. Few o’ tha Brewers love it. I prefer me metal tankard, meself. Better in a fight.”

I had indeed noticed that Whistlemop was selling mugs again. It was why my influence quest had been ramping up even though we weren’t selling much beer yet.

Quest: Dwarven Influencer Part 7/10

The dwarves need your help. Influence 1,000,000 dwarves with your otherworldly alcohol knowledge.

Dwarves Influenced: 923,000/1,000,000

Reward: [Pete’s Poor Manasight]

What had been a trickle was turning into a flood, and I estimated less than one or two months until I finally had my hands on my own version of Manasight. Hell yeah, magic!! I could hardly wait, and I had a secret plan in the works for when I got it. Richter and I had worked out the Sigils, and all I needed was that bloody Ability!

Blunt and I paused in our conversation to drink and ruminate. A tiny blue elemental carrying a wash-towel wandered by overhead as we sat in silence. The pair of us watched it go, and Blunt snorted. “How many Titled have ya got in one tavern?”

“Hmmm… everyone except Johnson and Bando. That makes it nine, I think?”

“Hah! That’s more than tha most expensive inns in Redwall! I hope yer chargin’ a lot!”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Annie and Rosie set the rates. I told them I don’t want any part in the inn, just the brewing.”

Blunt barked another laugh. “Aye, good. A [Brewer] should focus on Brewin’! And speakin’ of which, you were goin’ ta tell me about that other glass box! You were sayin’ someat’ about Louie?”

“Louis Pasteur, to be precise. Ya know how yeast works, right? It’s little micro-organisms that like ta eat sugar and make alcohol?”

“Aye. Hah! It was a Doctor here in Kinshasa at Archis University what proved it just a few millenia ago! Weren’t we surprised! We try not ta think about it too much, it’s all just Ancestral Seed ta us”

“Well, Louis Pasteur was a giant [Researcher]. I managed to get one of his books a while back; he wasn’t very well–known, but he had some interesting ideas.” That was a little [White Lie] but I doubted Blunt would follow up. “Pasteur theorized that drinks like beer and milk contained not only helpful yeasts, but harmful ones and dangerous bacteria as well.”

Blunt pulled at his beard, interested. “Aye, I’ve seen a few dwarves get sick on tha True Brew before. We call it Bad Beer.”

I carefully did not say, ‘I think all your beer is Bad Beer’, but simply nodded and continued. “He designed a process called Pasteurization, to try and kill off the bugs that cause Bad Beer. By keeping beer, or milk, or any other kind of drink at a temperature of sixty degrees for about twenty minutes, you’ll eliminate most things that cause spoilage. It also kills any yeast in the bottle, which will prevent autolysis.”

Blunt had his brewing journal out at this point and was taking notes. My estimation of him went up a notch; a lot of Master Brewers were too proud of their white hairs to take notes.

“What’s autolysis?” He asked, underlining something in the journal.

“Hmm… ya know how some True Brew can start ta taste a little ‘meaty’, or ‘stinky’ if you leave it in the keg for too long?”

Blunt frowned. “Ya mean all True Brew? Aye, that’s why we can’t ship Kinshasa beer much further than Minnova, and inns can’t keep it fer more than a few weeks.”

“That’s autolysis. It’s caused by tha yeast in the beer dyin’ off, then breakin’ down in a specific way. Pasteurization kills off tha yeast and the autolytic compounds, which has the added benefit of preventing any accidental off-flavours from bottle-fermentation too.”

Blunt stood bolt upright, his picnic bench clattering to the ground behind him. “Would… would that increase tha’ shelf life of tha beer!?”

I grinned, sharkline. “Absolutely.”

Blunt immediately started towards the Brewroom. “I need ya to show me! If this is true Brewer Peter, half tha Masters in the Guild would give their beards to ya!”

I followed after, smirking. Annie and I had talked long and hard about giving the inspector the full rundown of our brewing equipment. We’d eventually decided that opening up completely and presenting our new technologies as a gift was our best bet – a technique that had worked very well in Minnova. We had no real reputation in Kinshasa yet, so a goodwill show of technical innovation would go a long way towards cementing our relationship with the local Brewing Guild. Hopefully before they came to hate us for our beer innovation. First impressions and all that. I'd need to talk Blunt into letting us present this all to the guild.

In the long run, I really wanted everyone using this technology anyways, especially our enchanted machines. That Nether Infused Bottler (NIB) would’ve been a Godsend back on Earth!

Back in the brewroom, Blunt had his journal out and was – for the first time – actually drawing out our layout. “Ya told me about tha mash and lauter tuns, I understand ‘em but aren’t sure I’d want ‘em. No enchantments on tha lauter tun, I see. How are ya heatin’ it?”

“There actually is an enchantment, you just can’t see it from here. There’s a HERM, that’s a Heat Exchange Recirculating Mash System hidden inside that heats everything to a specific temperature. That’s just a fancy way of saying heated pipes and a pump.” It was also going to cost a small fortune in Mana Stones until I had [Infuse Mana]. At least our pumps and mill were still dwarf powered, since precision didn’t matter as much there.

“Why not just use tha standard boil-kettle?”

“Temperature control. With a mage on staff, it’s possible to keep it at a precise level and avoid hot or cool spots.”

“Makes sense. You usin’ somethin’ similar fer yer odd boil–kettle there?”

He pointed at our shiny chrome boil kettle. Rather than the standard cauldron on a platform above a fire, we had a squat wide thing right at ground level.

“Aye, though the enchantment there heats the entire kettle. That shape is better fer an even boil, and there’s a pump system set up ta move it to the hopback there. The hopback keeps any leaves or bits from tha bittering agent, and removes other trub that contaminates tha brew. It also flash cools the brew with that enchantment there and cleans out the hot break. That’s how our New Brew is made, and I suspect that Riverside uses somethin’ similar fer their True Brew.”

Blunt scribbled in his journal a bit longer. “Har! If this is tha secret to how Schist makes his Octamillenial True Brew, he’s gonna come here and yank yer moustache off!”

I held my hand protectively over my mouth. “Let him come and try!”

“He might! Now, show me that Tunnel Pasteurizer!”

We walked over to the tunnel that was next on the conveyor belt after the NIB. It looked almost identical, with hoses running to it and similar safety features to prevent questing fingers.

“Did ya design it yerself? How does it work?”

“Actually, Inventor Goldstone designed it. I just gave her the science.” And it had resulted in a Milestone for her too! Barck handed out a quick Milestone for your first invention to help drive Innovation, which was how I’d gotten my [Infuse Mana]. That didn’t apply to food or drink, which made a small amount of sense, but felt unfair. “The tunnel will completely fill with bottles from the conveyor belt, and they’ll slowly shuffle forward until they come out the other end. It works by pouring scalding hot water over the bottles for the twenty-odd minutes it takes them to shuffle through.”

“Doesn’t that slow things down?”

“Hmmm… a little, but it’s worth it.”

Blunt made another note. “Are there any downsides?”

“Sure. Pasteurization can cause staling, that is ‘aging’ of the beer. If you don't properly prevent oxygen from coming in contact with the beer, or are brewing something sensitive to aging, it can change the taste.”

“So its not all gold then. Dunno if I'd be happy with tha taste of me True Brew changin’...”

“What’s gold without pyrite to make it precious?”

“Hrm. Anythin’ else?”

“Nope, that's about it. We have a line heater to pasteurize beer for kegs. The next step is just packaging and shipping, and that's all by hand still. Maybe one day we'll get a golem for it.”

Blunt snapped his journal shut. “You've given me a lot to think about Brewer. Would ya be williin’ to come share yer first batch with tha Guild and teach all this?”

I smiled wolfishly, “Absolutely, Master Blunt.”

We fist bumped, and Blunt gave me a beaming smile. “Then welcome tha Guild, and good luck with tha contest! Yer gonna need it!”