Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

Book 2: Chapter 26: Monster Mash

It took a whole day.

A WHOLE DAY before everyone was back in working shape. Even then, the pub was closed courtesy of a note from Bran on the door this morning that simply read:

Not open.

Busy.

• Bran.

Well, that was fine since we’d run through most of our beer again, and I had plans for today.

Those plans started with four barrels of Cold Brew and a very pleased Joejam of Joejam Cuppa.

“Thank you for the purchase, Pete.” Joejam pulled at his blonde goatee and regarded me through his horn-rimmed glasses. “Did you all party so hard that you needed this much coffee?”

“No, no, and besides, only Balin, Bran, and I really drink coffee.”

Joejam raised an eyebrow. “What? That Aqua lass has been coming in early to drink an espresso for years. I think she’s up to a quadruple shot at this point.”

“Oh, really?” I said with fascination.

“Yes?”

“Well, that certainly explains some things about Aqua. We’re all very sorry about the competition, by the way.”

Joejam waved my apology away. “Nonsense, I wasn’t expecting to win anyways. I’m a dessert chef, and the contest favoured the main course. It drummed up some good business for my shop, and that’s what matters.”

Joejam had made a melted goat cheese and bacon sandwich for his main, with tomato soup on the side. His dessert had been some kind of filo pastry confection with alternating layers of cream and compotes topped with a vanilla drizzle.

“Is that thing you made going to be available in store?” I asked, as Richter and Johnson began carrying the barrels of coffee into the brewery. “It looked delicious.”

“Yes, I’m calling it my Octamillenial Eight Layer Confection, and I hope that it’ll pull some business away from that damnable new place that opened up down the road.”

“Oh, rough. Sorry.”

“Yes, well, nothing for you to apologize for. I hope the contest drums up some more dwarven business, though. I feel like I’ve tapped out the local gnomish community.”

It looked like everyone was trying to bridge the gnome/dwarf divide recently. I was suddenly struck by an opportunity to fulfill a long-standing need. “Hey, you know, I may have the perfect thing for you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s a snack that should go great with beer, which will help bring those dwarven customers in. We’d be happy to buy a bunch once you start making it, for a reduced price, of course.”

Joejam’s face grew greedy. “Tell me more!”

“There’s two variations, one is small and crunchy, and the other is large and soft. We carry the big one in our shop, you might have tripe dit. It’s a salted snack called a pretzel. I want to make the small one.” I began, as we moved indoors to work out the particulars. Sorry Knicknack! Maybe I could give our neighbour the recipe for beer nuts for a retirement present instead.

As we walked in through the door, Penelope walked past, her tail ramrod straight - a sure sign that she was pissed off about something. Richter had probably told her she couldn't drink any of the coffee. I moved to give her a wide berth, her love for me was strong, but it had limits. Plus I was pretty sure she was still hungover.

Joejam' eyes sparkled. "Is that the famous Penelope of the Thirsty Goat? Hello, Penelope!"

"Uh, I wouldn't," I began, but I was too late.

*BLEEEEEHHH!!!* [Translated from Prima Dona Goat] "Insolence!!"

—

I saw Joejam out after we finished our discussion. He was only limping a little.

There weren’t any contracts involved this time, it was all verbal agreements. Pretzels weren't some great thing, and it was likely that other bakeries would pick them up in no time. Plus, I really liked Joejam, so I'd sold him the recipe and concept for the low price of 'At-Cost' pretzels for the Goat. I sang a little DA DA DA by Trio as I dreamt of the salty, crispy, German goodness I’d soon be enjoying with my awful beer.

Then the stench of burning erdroot hit me in the face and I gagged.

“Ugh! No! Pull it out, pull it out!” I shouted.

“You just told me to leave it in!” Emma complained. “Make up your mind, boss!”

“No, pull it out! It’s burning!”

“Maybe use more lubricant?” Zirce put in; the pair laughed heartily. At least Emma pulled the Burnt Umber Erdroots out of the kiln as they did so. The erdroots were well and truly burnt, just like their name.

I sighed and marked down the time. “Okay, that was a bit too long. Do you see the crunchy stuff on the outside of the skin? That’s melted sugars, and we don’t want that. Let’s try again.”

“Aye aye!” The two of them began shoveling umber erdroots into the kiln for our next attempt.

I considered the scent of the roasting yam-potato-things and frowned. Normally, mashing was fairly simple, and most breweries followed the infusion mash method. The method had three simple stages. A heat, a mashout, and a lauter. There are lots of fancy mashing tools in the modern era, but all you really needed was a pot, a sieve, and a thermometer to do a proper mash.

The Thirsty Goat had originally used a wooden barrel as a mash tun with a burlap sack as a sieve. They’d done a pathetically short 20 minute mash by stirring the grist with the occasional addition of boiling water. I’d recently implemented the ‘Brew in a Bag’ BIAB method, where the grist was shoved into a loose cotton sack and tossed into the boil kettle instead of the mash tun.

The bag was stirred vigorously at 65-69 degrees Celsius for an hour. This was the ‘heat’ stage and was the optimal temperature for activating the enzymes responsible for breaking down the sugars. It was technically called ‘saccharification rest’, but nobody called it that.

The next step, mashout, involved getting the mash to separate out into nice clear sugary wort. This required raising the temperature of the boil kettle to about 75 C for ten minutes.

The final step, lautering, simply meant filtering the grains. For BIAB that meant pulling the bag out. Except the bag wasn’t perfect and there was usually a bit of grain left in the wort. Not that the dwarves cared, the original burlap method was worse. But I cared, so I had a lauter-tun on the way, and hopefully it would solve that little problem.

For my witbier, it was a bit more complicated. The unmalted wheat proteins in witbier had a nasty habit of causing haze, or making ugly clumps if the beer got chilled. This could be solved by performing a step mash, and a quick [Flash of Insight] had dredged up everything I’d ever learned about the method. I could lead everyone through it easily enough, but first…

“Ok, take them out.” I commanded.

Zirce and Emma scooped the roasted umber erdroots out, and I cut one open. It had the scent of roasted yams, and was soft and mushy.

“Okay, this is perfect. Let’s try it with the regular erdroot next. Do it for the same length of time.”

Annie stepped up beside me as I took a bite of the umber erdroot.

“Soooo, how is your new gnomish beer going?” She asked.

“It’s going.” I shrugged. “Ouf, hot!”

“I see you have the brewing station shut down?” She said, nonchalantly.

Uh oh, I recognized that tone of voice.

“I’m settin' up an experiment.” I looked over to the scaffolding, where Johnsson and Richter were chatting and laughing with nothing to do but wait. Hrm.

“You’ve been roasting those erdroots for an hour. We’re running low on our reserves after the party yesterday, so I do really need the equipment running at capacity.” Annie said sweetly.

“Ah… yes. Sorry, sorry, it’s my day to be a sorry sod. But honestly, I think I’ll be ready ta run this in ten minutes.”

Annie shrugged. “Fine, I guess. You’ve given me the ‘porters and stouts’ talk already, and I’m looking forward to it too. Have you decided on your ratios?”

“I’m going to do four different coffee stouts. For the gnomish wheat stouts, I’m doing a 1:1 wheat and erdroot with 10% roasted umber, then an even mix of roasted erdroot, wheat, and unroasted umber. Finally, one random set of ratios as a hail Mary. I’m also going to do one wheat-free for us, with regular erdroot and 20% roasted umber.”

Annie twirled her beard. “What does marriage have to do with anything? Or is that an Earth thing?”

“An Earth thing. The last step will be to add one of those barrels of cold brew at tha cold break step.”

Annie considered the barrels stacked up in the corner. “Well… it’s definitely not like True Brew, that’s for sure.”

“Finally, in a couple days I’m going to use [Refine Brew] on it like we do for the Ass-Blaster. I want to see if using the umber erdroot gives a beneficial effect. I just don’t know if it’ll work without being ‘unstable’ first.” I pulled up the Ability while I chatted.

[Refine Brew] – You are able to refine and stabilise a container of alchemical liquid with a touch. If the brew contains any unstable magical aethers they will be forced into equilibrium. The brew will become more nutritious and have a longer shelf life.

You can use this Ability once per second.

“I… Pete, the Lily-Leopard Oil’s effect certainly got us a lot of attention, but I’m not sure I could handle a repeat. What do you think will happen with the umber erdroot?” Annie said, her face serious.

I shrugged. “It’s a straight energy booster, so I’m hoping it mixes with the caffeine in the coffee to be even better.”

Annie nodded. “That would do quite nicely. We could get a lot of sales with a wake-up beer.”

“Yes, but I need to make it first. And how goes convincing the other brewers to let us back into the guild?”

“I’ve got two more that I think I can sway. I have a meeting with one tomorrow, and the last at the end of next week.”

I winced. “That’s going to cut it close.”

“Yes, well, let’s hope your brew turns out. You only get one chance.”

I shivered. Damn, I really needed something like that new Ability Bran had told us about. [Loved by Kraft Dinner] or whatever. Maybe I could get Balin to beat me half to death while I desperately stirred the mash.

—

Thirty minutes and a death glare from Annie later, and we were ready. Richter and Johnsson had ground the erdroot, wheat, and roasted umber into grist while singing their favourite ‘Heave Ho’ gristing song.

It was finally time for the mash. I walked over and emptied a sack of white powder into the grist.

“What’s that?” Johnsson asked, peering over.

“Jeremiah gets his secret ingredient. This is mine.” I raised my nose high and sniffed. It was Calcium Carbonate or chalk, and I honestly wasn’t sure I really needed it, but at this point in my brewing career it was a habit. The roasting process for stouts tended to increase the acidity of the malt to mouth puckering levels, and calcium carbonate would help reduce the pH to a more manageable level. However, all the water we used came from a natural aquifer down below the city, and I was pretty sure it was heavy in pH reducing minerals already. Still, I knew from testing that it wasn’t soft water, so I’d decided to err on the side of caution. Chalk it up to experience. Nyuck.

I pointed to the sack we were using for our BIAB. “Okay Moony, fill the sack almost halfway with ground erdroot, and then fill it the rest of the way with the wheat. Leave a little space at the top for a layer of roasted umber.”

Moony carefully apportioned everything out, then passed it to Richter, who dragged the bag up the steps and tossed it into the gently steaming water of the boil kettle. Johsson began stirring with the large ladle while I went to keep a close eye on the thermometer.

“We’re going to do something different this time everyone. We’re going to do a ‘step mash’!”

“Gonna need more than that, Pete!” Johnsson called from up on the catwalk. “What do I do?”

“Nothing special, really. Just keep it at 43 °C for about an hour.” I patted the thermometer. “That’s the acid rest, and it’ll help reduce the pH of the mash even more by releasing phytic and ferulic acid. Those acids should improve the flavour of the beer and remove some of the burnt taste. Moony, can I get you to shovel the charcoal?”

That was normally John’s job, but he still hadn’t shown his face since the competition. Johnsson said he wasn’t worried, but it really was quite unlike John.

“A whole hour?” Johnsson complained. “That’ll double the time per mash!”

I grinned. “And I’m not even done yet. Then we’ll raise it to 55 degrees for another 20 minutes. That’s the protein rest, and it should remove that awful haze that some of you may have noticed in the witbiers we were drinking with Berry.”

“I did notice that,” Emma said. “In between the choruses of ‘come on Emma, don’t be a coward, chug, chug, chug’.”

“I still can’t believe you drank it.” Zirce commented.

“You’re just jealous I shared a mug with Raspberrysyrup!” Emma countered.

I spoke over the pair as they began arguing. “Anyways, after the protein rest, do the one hour at 69 as per usual. Any questions?”

“So many - “ Richter began.

“About the steps?” I added.

“How do ya know all this?” Johnsson asked.

“I gave Alchemist Black a sack of silver to get his apprentices to run temperature tests for me.” That had the benefit of being true. I was actually surprised that the rest temperatures for erdroot were so similar to barley’s.

Everyone shrugged and went to work. On Erd’s very first batch of stout.

That I desperately prayed would be successful.

Maybe even a little bit to Barck.