Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

“Alright everyone, listen up!”

Annie waved to catch our attention. Just like last time, the entire brewery was in attendance; Aqua and her dad, Richter, John, Johnsson, and Balin. The only difference was that this time Jeremiah was standing to the side, his face dour. I guess he was feeling a bit melancholic watching the next generation preparing to take over. That, or he had indigestion; he’d been out drinking with his guard buddies all night.

Speaking of last night, Bran was out at the Grand Market with Opal purchasing new supplies after our immensely successful opening night! We didn’t have the staff to stay full-day hours, so the pub wouldn’t re-open until mid-evening.

Balin and I had actually gotten a decent rest last night. We’d gone to bed full of fish and chips, and dreamt odd dreams. At least I did. There’d been a gorgeous dwarf woman with a curly blonde beard and a horned helmet. She’d spent the evening singing “Call Me Maybe”, and I was still on the fence whether it had been a sweet dream or a nightmare.

I flicked the filter on [Minimap] to ‘animals’ while Annie launched into a speech about the importance of working hard. Penelope was… in the kitchen, rooting through the cold storage. Either Bran left the door open, or she learned how to turn the handle. I was going with the second; we’d need to find a way to keep her out. That, or she'd keep helping herself to the veggies and I’d start a betting pool on how soon Bran would figure it out. I gave him a week, tops. There were some very small dots scurrying around outside which I figured had to be rats. With all our new food we were going to need some traps set up soon.

I planned to run through the Grand Market searching for hops with [Minimap] during my break this afternoon. I hadn’t found any hops yet, but I wasn’t giving up ‘hop-e'! I'd quickly learned to toggle ‘people’ off as it turned the map into a useless sea of dots. While ‘Enemies’ wasn’t a setting, ‘monsters’ was. Apparently a map can’t really tell if someone wants to kill me, but it can tell if they want to eat me.

Whistlemop was still hiding in our tenement room. He was dealing with a lot of Titled [Lawyers], and Balin and I were getting a bit tired of all the extra company. There were multiple rumours surrounding the riot, but everyone agreed on one thing: it had started at Whistlemop’s cart.

Whistlemop swore up and down that some dwarf had blown up half his stock. Unfortunately, the ledger of purchasers had been lost during the riot so he didn’t know who. He had some good ideas though, and had some adventurers investigating. Whistlemop’s [Lawyers] were sure that he wasn’t going to be held responsible, but he was still in legal limbo for now. For their part, City Hall had hired a [Psychometer] who could talk to objects and he had the broken Whistlemugs under arrest. Which was only the fourth most ridiculous thing I’d heard this week.

“... big thanks to Pete for all his hard work!” I looked up at my name as everyone began clapping. I bowed and waved back. Thank you, thank you, yes, yes. Annie resumed her speech and I switched my [Minimap] to ‘quest items’. I didn’t have any quests where specific items were relevant, so nothing showed up. ‘Monsters’ was the same. Good thing, that.

Then there was a lot more clapping and I joined in. My attention snapped up as Richter and Johnsson moved forward. It looked like it was time to start! I ran to my station next to the boil-kettle and stood at the ready.

“And now, we will begin the first batch of our New Brew!” Annie announced proudly. That wasn’t entirely true, we’d tested it yesterday, but close enough.

John went over and grabbed a big bag of the roasted erdroot that served as our malt. He brought it over to Johnsson, who began turning the crank to grind it into grist. I spat on my hands, rubbed them, and began to operate a hand-pump next to the brew-kettle. There were some gurgles, then some spurts, and soon clean water was roaring into the large copper pot.

There was some excited chatter as the process began, but I ignored it to focus on pumping. I’d cleaned and washed every single surface last night and again this morning, and even checked the roasted erdroot for disease or rot. I’d asked Balin to do a maintenance check on all the equipment, and Richter triple-checked all the runes on the hopback chiller. This was the realization of my ambitions, and I wasn’t going to chance anything going wrong.

John's voice rose in a joyful tenor, and he was soon joined by Johnsson. The rest of us began to stomp our feet to the quick beat. It was clearly a mining song, but it seemed appropriate for the occasion.

Strike your pick, move it quick,

In the length of a candlestick!

In the black, watch your back,

Crack the stone with a mighty whack!

Heave! Ho!

Heave! Ho!

Dwarf be bold, search for gold,

Comb through the rock and moss and mould!

Specks of light, fight or flight,

Steel yourself for a bloody night!

Heave! Ho!

Heave! Ho!

Mortal coil, work and toil.

Dwarven life is a raging roil!

Swing and dig, lazy pig,

Back at home dance a merry jig!

Heave! Ho!

Heave! Ho!

Johnsson swore once when the crank smacked his shoulder, but the grind went off without a hitch. John lugged the grist up the steps of the catwalk connecting the hopback, mash tun, and boil kettle. He tossed the grist into the mash tun and Richter connected the water trough from the kettle, sending boiling hot water pouring over the yellow vegetable matter.

Now it was Richter’s turn for some hard manual labour as he began stirring the enormous wooden spoon, turning the mix of hot water and grist into mash. While he worked, Johnsson and I took a short break as Aqua brought us some water to drink. Even dwarves needed to stay hydrated!

Annie went up the catwalk to observe and soon called down. “All good so far! Dad, do you want to do the honours for the bittering agent? Johnsson, Pete, get off your butts and raise the mash tun!”

Johnsson and I groaned and went to turn a crank that drove a screw underneath the mash tun. The tun was raised above the boil kettle and Annie re-attached the trough to a spout at the bottom of the tun. Richter turned the spigot and soon hot, steaming wort rushed down into the copper boil kettle. Small flecks of erdoot traveled with it, and I tsked. I’d been so focused on the hopback I hadn’t thought about setting up a lauter tun! I pulled out my notebook and added ‘lauter tun’, along with a note about exploring temperature regulation during the mash. Oh well, it didn’t really matter for this run, but it was something to improve for next time.

“How does the Wort look, Annie?” Aqua called up.

“Looks normal! But we haven’t really done anything new yet. Hurry up dad, what are you doing?”

Jeremiah was standing at the foot of the stairs, holding several burlap bags full of his ‘secret bittering ingredients’ and staring at the brew kettle. He seemed practically in a trance. I shuffled until I was close by.

“You okay, Jeremiah?” I muttered. “Yer daughter is going to worry about you. You can have an existential crisis later, I’ll even buy the beers! Just get those sacks up there!”

Jeremiah shook himself and looked over at me. A series of conflicted emotions crossed his face until it settled on ‘resigned’.

"Yer a smart lad, Pete. M'Annie seems to think you can do anythin' when it comes to brewin'. She says yer tha greatest Brewer that ever lived."

"That's about right, Mr. Goldstone" I gave a smile that I hoped didn't come across as cocky.

"I pray to tha Gods that's true. Sometimes a dwarf has got ta trust in the strength of tha castle he's built. I want yer oath that you'll do everythin' you can ta make this Brew a Perfect Batch no matter what." He stared at me with intense eyes.

"I'll try." He stared harder. "I swear."

He nodded and ascended the stairs one at a time, each foot causing the steps to creak under his weight. There was a gravitas to the moment that brought silence to the brewery, broken only by the sound of boiling wort.

“Here ya are Annie.” Jeremiah croaked. He held out the sacks, and I had to give him credit, his hands only shook a little. Annie didn’t notice though, only having eyes for her father’s etched face.

“Thanks! Do you want me to throw them in?” She made to take a sack and Jeremiah clutched them tight.

“No. No, I’ll do it. No need ta get yer own hands dirty.” He gave a sick smile and Annie laughed. He walked over and pitched the sacks into the wort, where they were quickly pulled under by the convection currents. Annie stood beside him, taking one of his muscled fingers into her own smaller hand, and the two stared down into the roiling umber liquid for a while.

A moment passed as we all watched them from below. Two dwarves, a father and daughter, preparing to pass on the torch. John sniffled a bit, and Tom put his arm around Aqua’s shoulder. I thought back on a life that was, and buried a gasping sob.

“I’m proud of ya, Annie.” Jeremiah said. “Yer mum would be proud, and yer… yer ancestors would be proud of ya too. Yer twice tha brewer I ever was.”

“Did you know your accent changes when you get emotional?” Annie said, a tear streaming down her face. “It sounds ridiculous.”

Jeremiah scooped her up in a big hug. “I’ll always love ya Annie Goldstone, no matter- no matter what.”

“I’ll always love you too, dad.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Jeremiah was the worst, with giant tears streaming down his sloppy face.

It was always hard to see your child grow up.

—

The rest of the procedure went as well as we could have hoped. When the wort had boiled long enough, the burlap bags were pulled out with a (fully washed) hook, and the transfer trough was maneuvered to the hopback. Hot, steamy, cloudy wort flowed into the hopback, complete with some trub made of sticks and leaves and gooey mash. Steam immediately rose from the branch and burlap filter as the wort passed through. As it dripped through into the chiller, the change was immediately apparent; nearly all the trub had been removed. Annie and I shared a triumphant grin; the filter had worked! Since it was made with bitter branches, I decided we could call it our bitta’ filter. Nyuck.

The runes on the chiller lit up as Richter channeled mana into them. We could also use a monster core, but those were expensive. Richter and I had discussed the problem at length, and the final design was capable of using personal mana or monster cores as an energy source. It was a small piece of future-proofing that only cost a few extra gold. Annie stirred the wort in the chiller into a frothing whirlpool that rapidly grew more and more clear as the proteins separated out and fell to the bottom. In a few minutes all that was left was crystal clear wort. It had the placid stillness of glacier water and a heavy, musty, aroma.

Annie stared into the sparkling depths, her eyes reflecting a rainbow sheen on the surface of the wort that only she could see. She whispered reverentially. “Let’s get this into the first tank.”

Johnsson maneuvered the trough and the clear liquid flowed into the fermentation tank. A gooey film of trub was left at the bottom of the chiller. I ran up the stairs to clean it up with a mop and bucket. The gunky trub was easy to clean now, but it would become a nightmare if we left it caked on for any real period of time. A few deft twists of the mop and a splash of hot water would do for now, but I really needed that sanitiser! I had Whistlemop working on it, so I had nothing to do but wait.

Annie went down from the catwalk towing Jeremiah behind her. Her face was stuck on ‘joyous’ and she said with a wild tone. “It’s done! Now we wait two weeks and the first new brew in millenia will be ready for the next stage!”

The crowd cheered, though Jeremiah continued to weep. I patted the big lug on his back - he’d get over it eventually. Maybe we could buy him a fancy magic horseless-wagon or something.