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.”

“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?”