Chapter 4
(Domestic Light Pilsner)
I swished the liquid around in my mouth and tried as hard as I could not to spit it back into the tankard. Everything I’d had in Hagop up to that point had been delicious, and so I’d expected the beer to be the same. It was like someone took the worst, cheapest malt liquor, skunked it, and then added grass clippings. I was pretty sure that the river water that Johannes had pulled me out of yesterday had more flavor.
“Oh,” I choked as I placed the tankard back on the table and looked up at Hildegard. “This is, umm… this is not like the beer we have in Portland.”
“Human beer is known for being terrible,” the gnome told me with a smile.
“Well, why didn’t you tell me that?” I sighed.
“Because I wanted you to find out for yourself,” he explained, and he searched for an approving look from Hildegard. “See, Hilly? I’m a good employer. I encourage those under my wing to identify and solve problems themselves.”
“A cruel way of going about it, Babble,” Hildegard said. “I’ll replace it with a dwarf beer for free, if you like. Nobody orders human beer, so I won’t be losing any money.”
“Please,” I nodded, and she quickly swished out the old beer and replaced it with a dwarf beer that had a nice head to it, so it looked good at least.
“That’s the spirit,” Babble smiled and raised his own mug.
I smiled as I took a sip of my new reward and then stared into the tankard. It was more flavorful for sure, and the carbonation was better. It was definitely a pilsner style, but it had a decent body and no lingering aftertaste, but…
It tasted like any random macrobrew domestic light beer, at best. Even a beer snob like me had to admit there was always a time and a place for a session beer like this, but it shouldn’t be winning any beer making contests. It was nowhere near the level of craftsmanship that I’d been enjoying in the Portland craft beer scene, and to be honest, it wasn’t as good as my own home brews.
“Amazing,” I said to myself, and the gnome nodded.
“Yes,” he started. “Pyotr House is known as the finest purveyor…”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I interrupted him. “I mean, it’s amazing that this is your biggest export and it doesn’t even come close to the quality of what we have in Portland. This is the sort of beer that poor university students in my country drink when they can’t afford any better option.”
Hildegard and Babble waited in stunned silence as I took a few more sips.
“Really?” Hildegard finally asked. “Well then, Tyler, I’m sorry to disappoint you…”
“No, no,” I said, and I could begin to feel the cogs in my brain whirring.
I took a few more bites of the delicious bread to remind myself that good sustenance existed in this strange world. But this beer was not it. It was bland, run of the mill, cheap frat boy stuff. And sure, that kind of thing was good as an expendable resource for a keg stand. But it sure as hell wasn’t meant to be savored and enjoyed like a good craft beer.
And if this was the very best they had to offer, then I knew I could do a thousand times better.
“You say that humans don’t usually brew beer here?” I asked, and Babble nodded.
“Of course,” he said. “You tasted what they do produce. It’s like horse piss that’s been left out for a day. Filled with fish. And river water. And--”
“Stop it, we’ve just eaten,” Hildegard said in a sweet voice.
“So sorry, Ms. Beecham,” he replied. “But the giant did ask.”
“Well, I have an idea,” I said, “How about I try making beer? I know how it’s made, and I’ve been trying to get a brewery off the ground for years now. Thing is, it’s almost impossible in Portland with so many craft breweries already in operation there. But if I can find the right ingredients, I can make a beer that will be better than anything you’ve had.”
The two of them gave me a blank expression for a moment, but then Hildegard started to nod while Babble started to laugh, or croak more like.
“A human making good beer?” Babble sputtered.
“It’s not common,” Hildegard said. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.”
“Bah,” the gnome said.
“I’m telling you, if you could taste what we have in Portland, you’d never drink dwarven beer again,” I said.
The gnome was still chuckling, but something in my face seemed to catch his attention. He finally stopped laughing and leaned forward with a serious look.
“Hold on,” he said. “Do you really think you can make a good beer?”
“Not a good beer,” I said. “A great beer. Better than all the rest.”
“That’s some beer,” Hildegard said.
“And one that people would pay good money to try,” the gnome said.
“Oh, here we go,” Hildegard sighed.
“You’re just as interested in making a profit from this as I am,” Babble retorted.
I stopped paying attention to their argument as fireworks started to go off in my head. I was going to introduce them to the intricacies of craft beer, and it was going to blow their minds. It was going to be like India introducing tea to the British. Soon enough, everyone was going to be drinking the sweet golden nectar that I made, and I was going to finally live my dreams of purveying my own craft beer to the masses…
“That’s it!” I announced, and I slammed my tankard against the table. “That’s why I’m here! That’s my plan. You guys are going to taste the best beer that you’ve ever had in your entire life!”
“Hurrah!” Babble shouted, and he started to wave his hands in the air.
“Are you joking?” a cool, slimy voice wafted in from my left, and I looked at the entrance to the bar.
I saw a very pale elf with long white hair and a blue velvet robe standing in the doorway and blocking the gorgeous view of the Hagop River. There were two other elves standing behind him, and they all exchanged a glance for a moment before breaking down into shrill cackles.
“He said he’s going to make beer!” one of the elves practically wept as they stumbled inside. “A giant human! Making the best beer that Hagop has ever seen? Why, telling a lie of that stature is terrible trouble, surely!”
“Oh, stop it, Thod,” another elf wept as they took a seat in the corner of the tavern. “You can’t say such things out loud. But clearly, this giant belongs in the madhouse!”
I raised my eyebrow at the elves, who had no idea what was coming for them.
I mean, this place didn’t even have electricity, let alone any idea of what quality craft beer tasted like. And they claimed to prize it as their top export, but they didn’t even know what was good and what wasn’t.
“Well, I pity you for thinking that this beer is good,” I replied.
The elves suddenly stopped laughing, and then the one in the center cocked his head at me.
“You pity me?” he asked, and when he said the word ‘pity’ a glob of saliva flew out of his mouth and onto the floor. “Why I--”
“Hey, no spitting inside!” Hildegard said as she slapped her rag against the bar. “You know what happens when you do.”
“Our apologies, Hildegard,” another elf said quickly. “But we don’t take kindly to being pitied by a human. After all, there’s little that a giant like you could do that an elf couldn’t do better.”
“It’s true,” the other elf said. “Our fingers are lithe and nimble, unlike your giant clunky hands. And we don’t even deal in beer. Beer is for dwarves and drunkards.”
“We deal in wine, of course,” the last elf said. “And brandy.”
Ah, that made sense. They really were the snobs in town, and they thought that they had the best taste out of anyone.But I was going to prove them wrong. I was going to prove every creature in this whole city wrong. The humans, the dwarves, the elves, the gnomes… hell, even the horses if they could somehow talk and drink beer as well. What did I know? Hagop was full of surprises.
I turned back to Hildegard and Babble, who were far more encouraging than these curmudgeons.
“When you three have finished mocking my customer, is there anything you’d like to drink?” the proud innkeeper asked as she folded her arms across her chest.
“Oh, yes,” the middle elf said. “We’ve come in for some golden elderberry wine from the West Country. A little bird told me that you had a brand-new import, and we would like to be the first to taste it.”
“Which is why you’re here at this hour in the morning,” the gnome quipped.
“You’re also here at this hour in the morning,” the elf on the right shot back. “If you haven’t noticed.”
“We’re conducting very important research, I’ll have you know,” Babble said. “Aren’t we, Tyler?”
I looked down into the gnome’s beady little eyes, and I felt that I had made a real friend here.
“Yep,” I nodded. “This is a research trip.”
“Well, now I’ve heard it all,” one of the elves griped as Hildegard poured all of them some yellow liquid into three dark green glasses.
She went over and placed the glasses on the table, and the elves all grimaced before one leaned down and gave his glass a sniff.
“Oh, you can just sense how light it is,” he mused as the others followed suit.
They sat there and smelled their glasses for a good few minutes while they discussed the intricacies of the elderberry plant, and I wondered if they were actually going to drink any of it. Then the elf in the middle finally took a minuscule sip before he started nodding to the others.
“Exactly as I thought,” he said between a few more baby sips. “It tastes very, very good. Hildegard, we’ll take the whole bottle!”
So, that was the verdict? Very, very good? Man, this place was really going to take some getting used to. Dealing with people was hard enough, but I had to praise Hildegard for dealing with a whole menagerie of creatures who all had their own weird little habits and intricacies.
“As you wish, gentlemen,” she sighed, and she brought the entire bottle out to them. “You know, that’ll be sixty silver pieces.”
“Sixty?” one of the elves protested. “For wine from the West Country?”
“As you just said, it’s brand new,” Hildegard shrugged. “We only just got it in. Sixty, fair and square.”
“How about fifty,” the elf in the middle offered. “After all, we’re the very first, and I know that you don’t usually get customers until noon…”
“My prices are fixed,” she said as she raised an eyebrow. “You know that. We don’t barter with imports.”
“Fine, fine,” one of the elves relented.
They took turns looking at each other, and reluctantly decided to split it three ways. Then, they all tossed some small canvas pouches of silver onto the table, and Hildegard collected them.
“Thank you for your coin,” she sighed and then went back behind the bar to count it.
Even though these little freaks had made it their mission to make fun of me, I was still in good spirits. I could feel the wind in my sails, and as I looked out onto the beautiful shining river of Hagop, I felt like everything was possible.
“This is a bright idea, indeed,” the gnome nodded. “I’ve never heard anything like it. But any change is welcome in Hagop… everything is always the same here.”
“We don’t need to fix a city that isn’t broken,” Hildegard replied as she counted the silver pieces. “But if you want to make a beer, you’d better make it in time for the festival.”
“When’s the festival?” I asked.
Now that I had a mission, I was revving to go. And if I had a place to show off the product of my labors, that was even better.
“In four weeks,” she said. “But the hops are being harvested right now, and most of the other brewers have already lined up their share of the crop.”
“You’ll want to get the monopoly on some good hops,” Babble mused. “The dwarves are the first to claim the best crops, and I know that some brewing houses have been left in the lurch if they’re too slow to go to the harvester.”
“Then that’s the first thing we’ll get,” I said, and I guzzled down some more of my beer.
Hell, it wasn’t good, but it was the only thing I had to drink. Plus, Coors Light wasn’t the worst flavor in the world, even if I knew that it could be vastly improved upon.
“Just wait a minute,” Babble said as he held up his tiny hand. “There’s a few things about the festival, and about Hagop, which I think you ought to know before you begin this journey.”
“I knew this was too easy,” I sighed. “Okay, tell me about the festival.”
“The annual beer festival takes place in October,” Hildegard said. “So all of the brewers gather their ingredients in late September.”
“Which is now?” I asked just to be sure.
“It is,” she agreed. “But you’ll need to move fast to get what you need. The big breweries will already be buying up the best of everything.”
“And the dwarves don’t like to share,” Babble added. “If they know you plan on buying hops from the top growers, they won’t be happy.”
I wasn’t deterred. My luck had been pretty good thus far, and I was so hell-bent on my dream of the perfect beer that I knew that we could do it.
“Easy,” I said. “What else do I need to know?”
“You have a good attitude,” the gnome laughed as he looked over to the elves sipping at their wine. “That will get you far around here.”
“The panel that judges the beers is made up of two humans and four dwarves,” Hildegard said. “Humans don’t carry as much weight in this world as I imagine they do in yours, at least when it comes to brewing.”
“That’s an understatement,” I replied. “There are no dwarves where I come from. No elves or gnomes, either. Just humans.”
“An entire land filled with humans,” Babble said to himself. “I couldn’t imagine it.”
“It’s… different,” I said. “So how does the judging work? And why aren’t there any elves on the panel?”
“Elves? Drinking beer?” Babble snorted. “They would never demean themselves.”
“He’s right,” Hildegard said and glanced toward the elves who were huddled around their glasses. “No self-respecting elf drinks anything besides wine and brandy. The dwarves are the real competition, and they’ve been making beer for generations. They’ve never lost a contest as far as I know.”
“Perfect,” I groaned. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“The most important thing,” Babble burped, “is that the prize is ten thousand silver pieces toward your own brewery. And if you get those ten thousand pieces, I imagine you’ll be in a fine place.”
I wasn’t too sure of the exchange rate here, but ten thousand sure sounded like an excellent number. And if I could put that into a brewery? It would be my life’s dream come true. It was more dollars in the human world than I’d ever seen at once, and it would be more than enough to make the brewery that I wanted in Hagop.
“Ten thousand,” I laughed. “You guys have no idea. I could make the best beer out of the best ingredients with that money. I swear, you guys have never tasted anything as good as what I’m going to give you.”
“I’m intrigued,” Babble said, and he gave me a toothy smile. “In fact, I’m sold. I’d very much like to taste this amazing beer of yours.”
“So would I,” Hildegard added. “I’ll tell you what, if you win the contest, then I’ll stock all of your beer here for the people of Hagop.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really,” she assured me. “Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I always stock the winning beer.”
“But it would be nice if it was a local lad who won it,” Babble said and waggled his eyebrows.
“There’s that,” Hildegard agreed.
“I know that I can do it,” I laughed. “I’m making a solid promise that this is the best beer you’re ever going to drink. And I don’t break promises.”
“But you’ll have to beat Pyotr House,” Babble said as he thumped the bar. “And they’ve won for the past four years.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Pyotr House beer tastes like horse shit.”
The elves looked at me, and even Hildegard widened her eyes in shock. I knew that I’d struck a nerve, but I couldn’t wait to show them exactly what I could do.
“Of course it does,” one of the elves said, and he gave me a drunken, vague look. “That’s why we only drink wine.”
“But you’re going to love my beer,” I insisted. “All of you.”
I sounded like a maniac, but I didn’t care. I knew that my talent was going to win over all of these weird creatures. I didn’t care if they were foxes, elephants, gnomes, or sailors. I was going to prove them all wrong, and I was going to show them just how good beer could be.
And nothing was going to stop me. Hell, I’d ended up in this weird land, and if I was going to make something of it, it made sense that I put my best talents to work.
“Elves drinking beer,” Babble giggled, and he slammed his tankard on the bar. “This man is going to change Hagop!”
“Damn right I will,” I said. “Anything else you need to tell me?”
“Dwarves are tricky,” Hildegard said. “They’re very particular about what they like. So I wouldn’t stray too far from what they know if you want to win. Remember, four of the judges are dwarves.”
“That’s tough, but I can still work with it,” I said. “Nothing too exotic, but something that will show them what a real beer can taste like.”
“No trouble at all,” Babble snorted.
I couldn’t believe it. Only twenty-four hours in this place, and I already had my new mission in life.
I was going to win that ten thousand so I could finally build my own brewery. I was going to win over those dwarves, whether they liked it or not. They may have hated humans, but once they tasted the beer I made, they’d realize just how much time they’d wasted on bad beer.
And when it was all said and done, I’d be the master brewer they’d be talking about for generations.
“I suppose that settles it,” Babble said. “He’s the new finest brewer in town.”
“Ha!” One of the elves cackled in the corner, and I looked over and saw him already slouched over his friend’s knee. “As if a human could brew beer!”
“You’re drunk,” I said to him. “Before nine in the morning. I could do a whole bunch of things better than you.”
The elf’s eyes darkened as he furrowed his brow, but one of the others placed his hands on the elf’s shoulders and turned him away from me.
I felt indestructible. I was going to show these guys exactly what I was made of. And if they hated me even more, then that was on them.
But I knew that they wouldn’t.
“Yeast,” someone said, and I turned to Babble and Hildegard.
“Huh?” I mumbled and looked between them.
“Yeast,” Hildegard said. “You can buy some at the bakery just down the road. It’s on the way to the farm where all the dwarves buy their hops. But you’ll probably have to fight your way through the dwarves to get any. They’ve already started to buy up what they’ll need.”
“I can fight my way in,” I laughed. “I’m a giant, after all.”
“He’s my giant,” Babble announced proudly, and he looked around to see if anyone else was listening.
But the only souls in the inn were the already drunk elves and the three of us, and nobody else was there to hear it.
“Take me to get the yeast,” I told him. “If that fits in with your schedule, of course, boss.”
“Of course it does,” he burped, and he set his tankard out on the table. “To the bakery!”
“To the bakery!” I added.
The small gnome climbed from his stool, and together, we stumbled through the door in search of the finest ingredients to put in the finest of beers.