Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale

Book 3: Chapter 43: The Third Month of the Year 8000

From The Diary of Peter Roughtuff:

1st Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Our Wildest Dreams

We were almost as busy today as we were on release day. I think we underestimated the patriotic fervour that Kinshasa Brew would engender. We spent all morning and afternoon making as much of it as we could, so hopefully we won’t run out. Ironically, [Rapid Aging] is going to save our butts here.

But not mine; my butt remains unsaved. I have to spend nearly every waking minute in the brewroom using Abilities.

I haven’t even had time to learn any new spells yet!

3rd Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Luck Be a Lady

Lucky Jean’s released their brew for the contest today. It’s similar to their Lucky Brew, except it increases a drinker's chance of finding gems while mining. That sounds like a total cheat, and if it works as advertised, it may blow our brew out of the water.

We have to hope that our unique taste and advertising method is enough to get the votes.

5th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Nationalism, Shmatoinalism

To anyone reading this journal in the future, patriotism is a double edged sword. We had a few dwarves start up a ruckus today over the fact that ‘foreign dwarves’ had the audacity to release a ‘Kinshasa Brew’. They were loudly drowned out, mostly with fists and feet, but it definitely gave Annie and I pause. We technically aren’t foreign, since Minnova is part of the Kingdom of Crack, but I could see where they were coming from.

Disagree with it, and condemn their actions, but see where they were coming from.

It reminds me of the weird dad energy around youth sports. I get that your kid is a burgeoning Wayne Gretzky, but get your ass off the ice and stop yelling at the teenage ref. You’re supposed to be an adult.

Hopefully it doesn’t become a bigger problem. Ignore that. I didn’t write it and you never saw it.

7th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Pucker Cup, Sweetheart

Kinshasa Brew is a hit amongst the working set, especially the mining crews and Whitehall adventurers. You’d think that being around salt all day would make them sick of it, but instead they seem to have an affinity with the stuff. A few even asked for more salt to add to their beer! Madness! I categorically refused to ruin my beer with more salt. What was next? Ketchup!?

Instead, I grabbed one of the infinite number of lemons we keep around the building and introduced them to salted rims.

Addendum: reading that without context sounds dirty as a coalmine, so I’ve added some instructions.

Salted Rims

Ingredients:

Lemons

Salt

1. Cut a slice of lemon.
2. Run the slice around the lip of a glass or mug, soaking the edge in lemon juice.
3. Pour a generous amount of salt into a plate.
4. Rub the rim of the mug in the salt with a twisting motion. The salt should stick to the lemony edge of the glass.
5. Enjoy your lemony glass. Get some salt into a cut on your lips and scream for a bit.

10th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Hop To My Loo

I went back to the Human Market and found my erstwhile hops seller! He brought more hops, including several new variations. He explained that one of his [Merchant] Abilities told him that I had a valuable use for them, and he was happy to become my primary supplier. I brought Whistlemop along, and he bargained us a decent price for a purchasing agreement if we decided to go that route.

I set the flowers to drying, and as soon as things die down I'm going to test them in some brews!

There’s one more aromatic hop, and a few bittering styles. I can’t wait.

12th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: A Royal Pain

We found what Riverside Brewery did for their most valuable beer, and it really drove home the power of home advantage in dwarven society.

Their contest brew was called ‘Royale’, and it was impossible to buy.

Literally impossible. It wasn’t available in kegs, it wasn’t available in their brewpub, it could not be bought.

How will they possibly win the contest then? Who votes for a beer they cannot buy? Good question, dear future reader!

I asked our regulars who they were going to vote for, and while they were of course voting for us in our bracket, to the dwarf they were all voting for Riverside.

Because only one dwarf had ever drunk Royale, and ever would drink Royale. The King himself, who’d declared it his new favourite beer.

And what could possibly be more valuable than a beer only the King could drink?

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How in Aaron’s Hairy Arse, were we supposed to compete with that? I’ve since added ‘don’t let us compete against Riverside Brewery until the finals’ to my nightly prayers.

14th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: The Prodigal Beard Returns

Balin came back today! He came with materials, all of them useless, and stories, all of them fascinating. It’s hard to believe, but Deepcore is deep! He told us tales of falling for kilometers into a dark forest of stalagmites, where angler-eel-like monsters swam through air thick with watery Mana. Of a brightly lit sea of sand, where waves crashed with the crushing force of a thousand tons of erd, and Shalesharks swam right below the surface. And of white salt beaches, where delicious crab things skittered through the stone.

In case you haven’t noticed, dear reader, Deepcore has a rockfish fetish.

We’re just happy to have him back.

It wasn’t all good news. Aishablue had an arm dissolved off by a sponge-like slime monster called a Sploonge. Balin says she’s looking on the brighter side of things because she’s going to get a wand installed in a prosthetic golem arm to help her cast light spells.

I’m not sure if I should be horrified or proud of him.

They’ll be here for a month getting Aishablue used to her new prothetic before heading into fight a boss monster called a Breachcarp.

15th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Oh, Rapid Aging, I Can't Believe I Ever Doubted You

The rush of clients finally died down a little now that Kinshasa Brew has been out for a while. Does that mean we have time to rest? No. Local bars have started to specifically request as much Kinshasa Brew as we can provide. At least my Mana pool is blooming nicely with how much I have to recharge the Nether bottler.

On top of all that, we have a surprising number of gnomes coming to the pub these days. I’m not sure if it’s because of the Kinshasa Brew in particular, or just a side effect of Copperpot popularizing beer amongst his people. Either way, we need more beer.

I sent the recipe for the gose to Copperpot, but Annie refused to reveal the exact ingredients for the Goldstone Bitters, sending him mystery mulch instead. She’s still keeping the exact ingredients to herself. Playing dumb! Taunting me with it!

Future reader, if you’re familiar with Annie Goldstone, just know that she’s a vile, evil dwarf. Obstinate and unfeeling. A blight upon the happy and honest world of brewers.

18th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: The Sam Came Back

Sam came by and let us know that he’d vouched for us to Harmsson. We were more than welcome to go to any rallies in the future as ourselves. As if I’d ever go near that powderkeg again!

I asked him to keep an eye out for anybody rapidly gaining Blessings, and he told me that was literally everybody in the Charter movement.

Great. So, was Harmsson the Chosen? Or one of his right hand dwarves? Jean Herder’s warning about political Chosen had me itching to pack up and leave Kinshasa altogether. Only you, dear future reader of this diary, with the power of hindsight, will be able to properly judge my decision to stay.

22nd Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Episode 4, A New Hop

I tested the different kinds of hops in the now traditional tea format. The aromatic hops was reminiscent of the noble hop tettnang, while the bittering hops were all somewhat unique except for one.

That one is nearly identical to Kent Golding! The traditional hop of Irish Stouts is now within my grasp!

24th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Dungeon Break

There was a Dungeon Break this morning. Three Shalesharks crashed out of the dungeon and rampaged around Yellowwall. The adventurers, Balin among them, banded together and took them out, but not before they did serious damage to a fairly large swath of the district. The city hung the corpses from Scout’s Crossing over Darkwater Gorge, and I went to go see them.

Shark was a bit of a misnomer. Yes, they had dorsal fins, and yes they had the torpedo-like body, but the four clawed stubby legs looked more crocodilian than anything else. Their ‘skin’ was overlapping sheets of grey stone. Their mouths were circular blenders, with tentacles ringing them to shove stuff in. Their teeth doubled as their primary form of digging, and were sharp as shale.

One look was enough to give me nightmares for life. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in constant fear of things like that coming and eating me in my sleep. And Balin’s village had been destroyed by a stampede of monsters like that.

25th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Helping Hand

I went with Bando to another volunteer rally, this time for much needed repairs to Yellowwall following the Dungeon Break. I’d sworn to stay away from Harmssson, but under the circumstances I really couldn’t justify not going. In fact, everyone was going, including most of our patrons. With our cover blown, and Sam’s assurances that we weren’t going to get in trouble with Harmsson, we just went as ourselves.

This time the city sent work crews as well, and I was happy to see that Yellowwall wasn’t completely abandoned. Harmsson gave another speech, but laid off the anti-nobility rhetoric this time.

Then we went to work.

Dear reader, I learned something new about Shalesharks! They excrete a slimy mucus to help their large frames slip through the sand and stone of their dungeon home. That mucus is left behind, and takes weeks to dry. I was very quickly put in charge of using [Spot Clean] to remove patches of slime while others did repairs.

I don’t regret my choice to help.

But I regret it a lot.

Bando’s friends were understanding of our earlier subterfuge, even if they didn’t appreciate it. Either way, we didn’t hang around with them too much. Those kids are arrest bait. Sam dropped by and introduced himself to Bando as well.

27th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Word From On High

News came down from Opal. Tourmaline Barnes will see us next week, ‘after we win the contest.’

I like the cut of her jib.

29th Day of the 3rd Month, 8000: Do you feel lucky, punk?

I’ve been laughing for half an hour. I may be laughing all week. Lucky Jean’s has a little problem. Their Lucky Gembrew works a little too well. So well, that it tanked the price of gems in the city, after prospector-minded dwarves went hog-wild on it for the past month.

As such, everyone who would’ve voted for them, is now angry about the reduced price. To top it off, word on the street (courtesy of Johnsson and his new boyfriend Dwarf Draconis) is that dwarves were so enthusiastic about the gems that they didn’t actually consider the brew valuable.

We have this in the minecart!

32nd day of the of the 3rd Month, 8000: Winner, Winner

Chicken Dinner.

We won the vote. We’re in the semi finals.