Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

“You know, this is a pretty heavy bit of deja-vu.” I surmised, watching the inspector as he fiddled with a dial on the stainless-steel pressurized fermentation tank. Well, it looked like stainless, but it was actually a special alloy made with shellback shells.

“Whuzzat?” The elderly dwarf in the black robes of a senior Master Brewer grumbled. Master Brewer Blunt knocked the tank with his fist a few times and frowned, his white beard and moustache twitching with disapproval.

“This is tha second time this year I’m bein’ inspected. Though tha first time was an auditor.”

“How long ago was that? Start o’ tha year?”

“Aye. Doesn’t feel like it, though! Phew! The Octamillenial is comin’ up fast!”

“Not surprised yer bein’ inspected so much.” The inspector grumbled. “By Barck’s Beard, I dunno what halfa this junk is! Shiny though!” He flailed his arms in exasperation and gestured at our shiny new brewroom.

I took a slight step away to dodge the stench of onions that wafted off him. It seemed some traditions were universal in Crack, including onion-bearing overbearing Master Brewers.

“It’s all brewing equipment. Top of the line. It’ll make enough beer to make yer moustache curl!” I said.

“Hah! Yer just lucky ya finished it with two weeks ta spare! If’n half tha’ tales Master Brewer Malt has been sharin’ with tha Guild are true, it’ll do somethin’ all right!”

We shared a laugh, though mine was a bit forced. Malt! What were you telling them about us!? Annie and I were going to need to set aside time to visit the Kinshasa Brewer’s Guild now that construction was done, before it was too late!

The Guild inspector was visiting to ensure we were ready to represent Minnova for the Octamillenial celebrations. They were just two weeks away, and the energy around the tavern was electric. As soon as he was gone we were going to fire everything up and have our first brew! We could’ve just provided the inspector with a fresh beer to prove we were ready, but we really wanted to show off.

The past three-and-a-bit months were a blur, with unending work to prepare our new Thirsty Goat for prime time. We’d started with gutting the main building and installing a multi-tiered seating area, with a large number of bolted down tables, and a small stage for performances. A stone fireplace had been set up in the center, providing a nice cozy warmth no matter where you were in the dining room.

I’d managed to convince Annie to put a double hinge on the front circular door for ease of dwarf-tossing. Now it went both ways, just like Freddie Mercury.

The back furnace and workshop area had been transformed into our new brewroom, and it was full to the brim. We had a lauter tun, a mash tun, a boiler, a hopback, ten enormous shiny new pressurized fermentation tanks, and more. It looked almost exactly like a modern day brewery, with a chrome finish to nearly every surface. Pipes in the walls lead to a dozen maturation tanks in the basement, where lagers or matured ales could spend a few months before being piped back up.

This left zero space for an actual kitchen, but Annie had come up with an excellent solution.

We simply bought out the bakery next door and added it on to the building. Dwarven [Mattershapers] made it as easy as pie, and the previous dwarven proprietor had been more than happy to sell. He’d been worried about all the competition from the Octamillenial contestants, and had been thinking about leaving town. We provided the gold, and he provided two feet out the door. The bakery was now seamlessly attached to the restaurant area and converted into a well-appointed kitchen, with half the wall between them blasted open so patrons could watch the chef at work.

Bran said he hated the attention, but he also kept posing when he worked recently.

The hardest part had honestly been all the running around. Between City Hall, tradesfolk, and some basic exploring, I had a lot of new milestones and quests.

Quest Complete: It’s All About Brew!

You’ve created, designed, and built a new kind of brewery!

Gained 0.4 Charisma! Your new Charisma is 17.8!

Quest Complete: Owning Property

You now own property in the biggest city in the country!

Gained 0.6 Charisma! Your new Charisma is 18.4!

Quest Complete: Fully Explore Kinshasa

You’ve used your new [Map] to fully map your current location.

Gained 0.4 Vitality! Your new Vitality is 19.4[23.4]!

Milestone Gained!

Walking over 800 kilometers under your own power has given you the ability to choose a Milestone!

Milestone Chosen: [Long Stride]

Stat Increased!

Your Agility has increased from 13.2 to 14.2.

New Quest: Crack’s Greatest Brewer 1/4

Take the first step to true greatness!

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Pass the Octamillenial National Brewing Contest Preliminaries: 0/1

Rewards: +0.6 Charisma, +0.6 Vitality

[Long Stride] was an overpowered hiking Milestone for day to day life. It increased my Agility by 4 for the purposes of walking, which I did everywhere. It essentially made my travels 1.5 times faster and I loved it to death. Added to my usual 14 Agility, I was now just over twice as fast at power-walking as an Earth human, and it showed!!!

“If there’s anything in particular you don’t understand, let me know! I’d love to talk about it!” I piped up, like an apple developer desperate to show off his new ipad.

The inspector continued his lazy circle around the brewroom floor, but seemed bereft of words. I followed him between some fermentation tanks and had to duck under a little blue elemental that was cleaning the ducts with a jet of steaming water.

Another big change was the two new workers running the inn side of things. Rosie and Darrel Digger had shown up one week after we’d left, hot and ready to fight. They’d calmed down upon learning that we hadn’t kidnapped their erstwhile son, then had a group huddle. They then managed to convince Annie and me – with a bit of pushing from Bran – to hire them all. Darrel was our new sous-chef, Rosie was in charge of running the inn, and Bando was… being Bando.

I’d gently reminded Annie about her speech last year about bringing in too many new people at once, and she’d grumbled something about ‘this is all new anyways’.

I could faintly make out the sound of Rosie yelling something at Bando in the pub and it was music to my ears. For once, I wasn’t in charge of the chaos that was running the day to day. I could finally focus on my brewing!

One whole wall of the brewroom was taken up by bottles, and we had to skirt around them. A conveyor belt ran from the stack to a series of glass and metal boxes. I noted the Master Brewer squinting angrily at the dangerous pile; that was a health and safety hazard that I’d need to fix.

Whistlemop had managed to figure out the location of the glass company that used to own this building. They’d moved to a larger plant in Yellowwall, where they were shipping glass to all over Crack. They were located as far away from Deepcore as possible, on the other side of Darkwater Gorge, so they barely had any monster attacks. They’d provided all the glasswork in here, and would be providing our bottles as well.

“What’s this?” The Master Brewer asked, running his hands over a pair of very long and wide oblong boxes sitting on top of the conveyor belt.

“I’m so very glad you asked!” I cooed, rubbing my palms together and coming alongside him. “I’m very proud of this. This is the result of a collaboration with Engineering Professor Copperpot, Healer Richter, and myself. It’s a Nether Infused Bottler followed by a Tunnel Pasteurizer!”

“Hoy!” Master Brewer Blunt backed up, his eyes wide. “Yer usin’ NETHER in brewin’!? Yearn’s Wrinkly Yams! Are ya mad!!”

“Hush, it’s perfectly safe. It was approved by two senior [Engineers] and even if it loses containment, the worst that’ll happen is a strong breeze. Just… don’t stick your hand in there Don’t stick your hand in any machinery. EVER..”

A very strong breeze, but I didn’t care. That tunnel had been a masterstroke of genius on Richter’s part, advised by yours truly, and completed by Copperpot.

It’d even gotten Richter a Blessing from Barck. Combined with his Blessing from Archis, he’d chosen to become a Titled Healer, muttering something about keeping us all alive. It’d also gotten me a new Milestone and stat boost to boot!

Milestone Gained!

Designing a new Arcano-Mechanical Device has given you the ability to choose a Milestone!

Milestone Chosen: [Infuse Mana]

Stat Increased!

Your Intelligence has increased by 1, your new Intelligence is 17.4!

Richter had laughed at me for choosing an Ability I couldn’t use properly without [Manasight], but once I got [Pete’s Poor Manasight], we wouldn’t need mana stones to run any of the numerous enchantments around the building! I’d be a portable mana battery! Maybe one day I could use it to put on a golem suit and go fight crime. I’d call myself Mithrilman or Steelman or something else equally non-copyrighted.

“You’ll need ta explain it to me. Before I can approve it.” Master Blunt grumbled, peeking inside. The sides were made of glass to ensure we could see what was happening, with a conveyor belt running through it. Each end was covered in rubber tabs to prevent foolish fleshy fingers. An important safety feature, among several, because ‘not sticking your hand in working machinery’ was a hard concept for some people.

“Sure. You know how beer goes bad when exposed to air?”

He gave me a glower. “Yes. I’m not a journeyman, Brewer.”

“Just askin’. Well, you might have noticed from the tanks that none of our systems are exposed to the air. The problem was, how ta bottle the beer efficiently without exposin’ tha beer to oxygen. Our old industrial bottle stick system just wasn’t going ta cut it anymore.”

The main way bottles were filled on Earth was a Counter-Pressure Filler. It blasted all the oxygen out of a bottle with CO2, then re-pressurized it with beer from the tank. Unfortunately, even with aetherstones, we hadn’t figured out an efficient way to do that on Erd. Then Richter had surmised that since the problem was an Aether, why not simply negate it with Nether.

Nether was an Element on Erd, the Element of ‘that without form’, and it encompassed the concepts of vacuum, dark matter, and forces. Vacuum Bottle Filling was absolutely a thing on Earth, though not usually on an industrial scale. Vacuum was dangerous. Nether, on the other hand, could be used fairly safely as long as you didn’t try to touch it.

That was all the background. All Blunt needed to know was this. “This enchantment fills that entire space with Nether. We don’t need to contain it or anything like that, because the enchantment simply fills the box with Nether. A bottle goes in? The air is eliminated, to be replaced with Nether. A special nozzle bypasses the enchantment and allows beer in to fill the bottle. The bottle is immediately capped, and exits the box, having never come into contact with air! Tadah! Oxidation bypassed!” And since we no longer needed to do bottle-fermentation, we were using actual bottle caps now!

“Interesting… and innovative. I would like ta see yer designs. I was unsure about this Octamillenial thing at first, but this seems to be an incredible advance in brewing, young Brewer.”

“Of course!” And I meant it too. I eventually wanted every brewery on Erd using these machines. They’d go a long way to improving the consistency and taste of beer.

“What about this next part? The… Tunnel Pasteurizer?” Blunt asked, pointing to the next box on the conveyor belt.

“Ah, yes. Let me tell ya the story of Louie Louie.” Wow, Richard Berry and Freddy Mercury references in a single sitting? I was on a rock and roll!

“Who?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s go grab a drink in the pub.”

“I don’t suppose you have any True Brew … ?”

“.... no.”

“Pity.”

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