Beers and Beards

Book 3: Chapter 53: Bocks and Balls

We left the bocks to cook overnight. I could’ve just used [Rapid Aging] right away, but after a full day of brewing we were all too tired to appreciate a new brew. I went to bed with visions of smoking and flaming brews dancing in my head. At this point, who cared if we won or lost? I was making a magical flaming beer, godsdammit!

I popped up in the morning and got dressed up in my lounging armour while belting some Good Morning by the Steve Miller Band. Caroline had always complained that I was too much of a morning person, but I couldn’t help loving the feeling of waking up and revving up at the same time. All I needed was some coffee and then I’d really be going.

The absence of a warm body next to me in the morning still grated at my nerves, but I was getting used to it. I kept a cold stone there instead.

I waltzed into the manor-house dining room to find a bevy of battered and sauced breakfast dishes on the table. The only other two people up already were Richter and Bran. Richter was reading a book and Bran was setting up the massive smorgasbord.

“Uh, Bran?” I asked, taking a seat.

“It’s test food for the contest. Tell me what’s good and what ain’t.”

“But, there’s so much…”

“Aye. There is. You don’t need to be eatin’ all of it, just some of it.”

I stared. There was just so much food. To be fair, there were quite a few of us, and we were all big eaters, but still.

Ah well, the rest could go to the bottomless white hole that was Penelope, her weight loss regime be damned.

I started on a biscuit covered in pulled pork drenched in a brownish cream sauce and topped by an egg. I was always a fan of eggs benedict, and this looked to be a delicious example.

The poached egg was done perfectly, and it burst in my mouth, the tang of the egg the perfect compliment to the spice of the sauce. The faint undertones of beer came through both in the sauce and the pulled pork.

“I like this one!” I nodded at my plate, then wolfed down another mouthful.

“Alright,” Bran said, “but I dunno if I want to make breakfast food fer the contest. Seems a bit too limited.”

“It could also make you stand out?”

“Mebbe.”

I pointed at what appeared to be some battered fish. “Those the usual beer battered fish and fries?”

“Yes an’ no. It’s the usual beer batter, but this time I used some sliced beer-braised chicken breast.”

“Oooh!!” I reached over and grabbed a few, then dipped them into a proffered container of honey mustard.

Honey mustard was the best sauce for chicken fingers, and I would willingly die on that hill.

I took a giant bite and chewed on the beery chicken finger for a while, then pushed the plate forward.

“It’s too strong, Bran. It’s like eating hot. mushed, beer. I’m not a fan.”

Bran’s face fell. “Aye, I thought so too. Maybe without the beer in the honey mustard?

“Hmmm, aye, or with dryer breading?”

“I’ll try it. How about that one?” He pointed at a dish covered with small, round dumpling things. They looked like filo pastries wrapped around brown filling.

I picked one up and the shell crunched between my fingers; definitely filo pastry. It was slightly smaller than an apricot, and I could probably down it in a single bite. The smell made my stomach rumble. “What is it?”

“I got the shell from the bakery down the street. It’s filled with ground-up beer nuts mixed with sauteed goat and mushroom. I call ‘em Bran’s Nutty Balls.”

“Bran… I… “ I was bereft of words. “We have to work on your naming sense. Or are you doing that on purpose?”

Bran gave me a curious look, “What do ya mean?”

Richter looked up, “Pass me one, sounds interestin’.”

“Never mind…” I sighed. “Let’s give it a try.”

I took a tentative bite, the taste of the beer chicken fingers still cloying on my tastebuds.

The filo pastry was thin but flavourful, with a hint of thyme and fried oil. It had the texture of a baklava, though the taste was more savory than sweet. The inside was very much like a dumpling, with a mealy texture from the nuts. The sauteed goat and mushroom was delicious, meaty and juicy and packed with spices.

“I like it!” I murmured around a full mouth of balls.

“Me too!” Richter announced, grabbing another.

“Good!” Bran sniffed with pride.

“Do you have more?” I asked, reaching for the plate.

Bran slapped my hand away and gestured expansively to the rest of the table. “Nah, there’s still lots more fer you to try! Until the rest of the lazybones get up, you’re the only ones here when it's all piping hot! Now get to eatin’!”

“Richter got more!”

“Richter’s been workin’ hard for an hour already! I don't want to see me Balls in your mouth, you hear!?”

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I dutifully shoveled food for the next half hour. There was beer cheese, beer sauce, beer baste, beer braise, and beer gravy. It was unbeerable! Nyuck!

In the end though, the – ugh – Nutty Beer Balls were still the best. It was with a heavy heart that I told Bran he should probably consider adding beer cheese to make – ngh – Bran’s Cheesy Nut Balls.

Gods, it was too early in the morning for this. It would've been more bearable if anybody else had at least chuckled at the name, but I seemed to be the only one bothered by it.

The rest of the crew slowly petered in over the next hour, and I left them space to eat. I had some [Rapid Aging] to do!

—

[Rapid Aging] was quick, and it left me enough time to do the finishing touch – the nitro. My constant practice was showing fruit as I changed all the carbon dioxide in our fourteen carboys and barely even felt the pull on my mana.

Everyone agreed the Nitro brew tasted like beer while adding a certain mystique to the flavour. If Richter’s alchemy contraption worked as advertised, we’d have a beer like none other!

Honestly, one-off beers and specialty beers like this were what I lived for as a brewer. Crafting beer for the liquor joints could get stale quickly, since they had all kinds of rules for what you could and couldn’t do, and people had certain expectations of what beer ‘should’ taste like when they bought it at the store.

To compensate, Beavermoose, like most craft breweries, had special brews that you could only get at the brewery itself. We used to have a Christmas dunkel that we infused with cranberries, and a summer wit that we added grapes to. They were only available in the brewery itself; a special treat for our local customers and ourselves.

Ah… those were the days. And they were here again. I rubbed my hands with anticipation as Richter unpacked the box he’d been delivered this morning.

His alchemical infuser did look a lot like our enchanted bottle filler. It had the same glass box design with the hose running through, and the safety gaskets to prevent questing fingers. The only big difference was that it wasn’t designed to bottle the liquid, but pass it through, expose it to the enchantments and the alchemical catalyst, and then send it on.

“Is this really some kind of new tech? Why? I mean, I can understand why brewers never needed anything like it, by why wouldn’t Alchemists? Isn’t it helpful?” I asked Richter as I ran my fingers over the enchantment’s runes.

“There were similar designs for small batches.” Richter nodded. “‘Dat’s what Copperpot and I based ‘de original nether bottler off of. But, there was no need for mass production like ‘dis in standard alchemy. Almost all potions are one-offs made wit’ expensive ingredients. Ya just don’t need to apply so much catalyst so quickly.”

“So… is this a valuable invention, then?”

Richter shrugged. “Dunno. Alchemist Mcbottle seems ta think it could be.”

I paused. “Would that be, Urist Mcbottle?”

“Aye?”

“Ah.” At this point, between the Mcbuttles and the Mcbottles, I had to put it down to the dwarven naming equivalent of Baker, or Smith. “Well, as long as it works.”

“It does. I’ve tested it plenty.”

“Not on the Sacred Brew you haven’t! Mayhaps its mystical Sacred properties will prevent your invention from working properly.” I sniggered.

Richter gave me a tetchy look. “You donnae believe that.”

“Who me? A staunch Master Brewer am I.”

“Uh huh.”

I was impatient by the time everyone filed in, so I didn’t bother standing on ceremony. It was a small crew today, with just Annie, Aqua, Johnsson, Richter, and Kirk.

“Alrighty everyone. This isn’t the same as a regular rackin’. All of these are incredibly high in alcohol, so havin’ Penelope taste all of ‘em is gonna give us a dead goat.”

Aqua held up her hand. “How high?”

“High high.” I waved noncommittally.

Aqua rolled her eyes. “How high, Pete? Will it actually knock a dwarf out like you said?”

“That’ll depend. I need to check before Richter runs his little machine on it, just in case it changes the specific gravity of the beer. I’ll give you the numbers in a second.”

Saying that, I uncorked the first of the bocks. It was a deep amber colour, and had the creamy look of a nitro beer. The smell was different from any other beer I’d had on Erd, with the familiar citrusy hint of the hops.

It was glorious, and I couldn’t help but close my eyes as tears sprang up. It smelled like home.

“You okay Pete?” Annie asked with concern.

“Aye. *Sniff*. I’m fine. Just remembering. Speaking of which, [Pete’s Miniature Remembrance]!” With that, I flexed my hand and a small glass cylinder popped into my palm. It contained another glass rod with a bulb on the top that rattled loosely inside. When I’d tested this earlier, I'd found that as long as my intent considered the two pieces as part of the greater ‘whole’, I could summon both of them with a single use of the Ability.

Handy!

Of course, it made sense when I thought about it. It wasn’t as though summoning my old beer journals only brought one page at a time.

I held the item up so everyone could see it. “Ta dah!”

Annie was the first to ask. “What is it?”

“Remember how I said there were two steps to determining alcohol content in beer? Tha first was the refractometer, tha second is this! A hydrometer! It can measure tha specific gravity of beer, and we can use that ta determine the alcohol content! We can also use it ta determine if the fermentation is done, by checkin’ the specific gravity every day. If it doesn’t change from day to day, it’s time to rack. Though of course, when you have an expert brewer like myself, I can just tell.”

I thumped my chest with pride.

“How does it work?” Richter asked with interest. “It looks a lot more basic than your refractometer. Whistlemop could probably make that. Just a tube and a stick with numbers on ‘em?”

“Yea, he could. That’s on the bucket list.” I grabbed a sanitised hose prepared for the occasion and siphoned some beer from the carboy into the hydrometer cylinder. The head that formed was the proper cream colour of a nitro, and I smiled with pleasure as everyone leaned in to look at it.

“It looks so unique!” Aqua sqeaked.

“Smells good.” Richter commented.

“Can I drink some?” Johnsson asked, reaching out with stars in his eyes.

“No! Not yet! I need to check.”

Using a hydrometer was simple. I just took the stick with the bulb and dropped it into the cylinder. The bulb floated on the top of the beer, with a small portion of it sinking below the liquid level. The graduations told me the current specific gravity, and comparing it to the earlier measurements from the refractometer gave me a baseline. Some mental math later, and I had the alcohol content.

“Phew! This one has an abv of 15%! That’s about ten times a regular old Sacred Brew!” I said it with cheer, but everyone looked trepidatious at my words.

“Ten times….? Is it safe?” Annie asked.

“Should be,” I murmured, “Just think of it as drinking ten beers at once! Who wants to try it first?”

Every hand went up, plus one hoof.

So I poured a mug for everyone, and passed them around.

I held my whistlemug up. “Cheers!”

There was a moment of silence as everyone chugged their beers.

Then a moment later a loud *bang* as Johnsson hit the floor.

Followed by Annie.

Followed by Aqua.

Leaving only Kirk, Richter, Penelope and myself still standing.

“It’s nice.” Kirk murmured.

Richter’s eyes rolled up, and he slowly toppled over. Penelope wandered over to munch on his wet beard then lapped up his spilled glass.

“Lightweights,” I muttered.