Beers and Beards

Book 3: Chapter 42: Nitro

Reincarnating in Erd had been a traumatizing experience – the feeling of being ripped away from my loved ones and acclimatizing to a new world was one I never wanted to feel again.

Yes, I had new friends and family now, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to do that again. And again. And again.

There was a reason popular culture back home often turned living forever into a curse.

[Otherworldly Elchemist] seemed interesting, but it just didn\'t quite mesh with what I wanted. Which was more magic. And given that early Specialisations impacted future choices, there was only really one choice for me.

Farewell, [Bottomless Barrel]! You were my favourite, and you saved my bacon more than once, but in the long term, I don’t really need you.

*Bing*

Specialised!

You have become an [Otherworldly Arcane Crafter]!

Done, and done. Let’s test these new Abilities out!

“[Crafter’s Eye]!”

I had the Ability on for a bare second before holding back a scream and turning it off. I slumped back into my chair and groaned.

The world of Mana had been a fascinating experience of bright flowing colours and glowing ethereal landscapes. It was a joy to look at and would probably remain so forever. The world of flaws was a horror for any serious crafter.

The brew I’d been holding, the brew I’d poured my heart into, was a bright red that indicated it was flawed.

A quick run around the brewroom confirmed it. Everything had flaws. Everything!

The brews in the tanks were bright red.

The various arcano-mechanical pieces we had around the Brewroom had bright red spots all over them.

Even the little makeshift goat-bed I’d helped Balin make for Penelope had a few spots of red!

It was a nightmare. It was all wrong.

And the worst part was, I really did already know it. Crafter’s Eye just instantly brought into focus problems that I was capable of finding on my own. All the tech in here was slapdash – first generation machines meant to fulfill the job of something that didn’t exist in this world. And all the brews were, deep in my heart, imperfect.

It really went to show that as much as we’d improved, there was still so much more we could do.

I turned [Crafter’s Eye] back on, then tried to adjust my vision. With some practice, I found that I could turn specific types of flaws on and off. I could focus on material flaws, or process flaws, and even my own ideas of what flaws were. For example, with my personal concept of flaws turned off, our brews were practically pristine. I peered into the mug of barista brew, glowing a pure yellow from the Mana within and nary a speck of red to be seen, and smiled.

Finally, I walked over to some of the bags of malted erdroot against the wall, and some bright red spots indicating bad malt popped up like stop lights. I made note of the bags to deal with later.

Yes, this new Specialisation was very me.

Time to test out the other new Ability.

I wasn’t quite as sure what it meant, though I had some ideas.

[Lesser Mana Crafting]–You can infuse and manipulate Mana within your crafted items directly, without the need for a medium. Additionally, you can infuse your Mana into Enchantments.

This Ability is always available.

More than half the battle in learning Sigils was getting the Mana to properly infuse into the new Fundamental. Changing my own personal Mana was fairly simple, but properly transferring it and manipulating the Mana outside of the body was trickier.

This Ability seemed to bypass or simplify that step.

I activated the wand again, drawing green Mana from my body. This time, I focused on the part of the Sigil that changed my own Mana into its new form. The sigil for that was quite simple: a basic circle and some criss-crossing lines. It was the work of moments to leave a glowing green series of lines hanging in the air.

Next, I brought the Sigil up to the mug, focusing on both it and the drink. With [Crafter’s Sight] on, I could clearly see the Mana flow within the beer – a murky yellow with bits of blue.

“[Lesser Mana Crafting].” I muttered.

And suddenly, it was so obvious. With a thought, I pulled the Mana from my Sigil into the beer and replaced some of the Mana within. The displaced Mana flowed out of the beer like blue bubbles that would be invisible to anyone without [Manasight]. As I worked, I could see little pockets of red where my Mana hadn’t done its magic yet, and I focused on making those red spots disappear by sending them Mana from the Sigil. Out! Out damn spots!

Soon, there wasn’t any red left, so I turned off [Crafter’s Sight] and stared at the mug. It didn’t really look too different, though there were some subtle changes if you knew what to look for. The foam was just a little whiter, with smaller, less distinct bubbles that gave it the appearance of cream. I gave it a whiff, and it smelled a little less like burnt coffee, with a more muted aroma.

I took a small sip, then a full gulp, swishing the beer around in my mouth as I did so. It was thicker than our usual Barista Brew, with some of the bitter bite I’d grown reluctantly used to stripped away.

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I smiled.

Yes, the Abilities worked in tandem, just as I’d hoped. With this I\'d be able to learn and perform magic at least twice as fast with no chance of error.

And I’d just created the most important beer in the world. A beer that I’d be able to easily pitch to any dwarven Master Brewer, no matter how recalcitrant, as a completely separate beast from Sacred Brew.

I’d hit the Nitro, and brewing in Erd was about to go into overdrive!

I spent the next little while having some more fun with my Specialization, then played with the idea of jumping straight into Specialising again. I technically had enough Milestones sitting around that I could consider it.

However, all I had were junky, common Abilities that were irrelevant to my crafting. Any Specialisation I got out of them would be garden variety at best, and pure combat at worst. No, I needed to get some more magic based Abilities first.

With the mug of beer as proof of concept, I went to see if I could change an entire tank. It only took a single attempt before I realized that my Mana pool was insufficient. It would take a lot more practice before I had enough to do big jobs like that. Mana was like a muscle; the more you used it, the more it grew.

And I’d been skipping leg day for years.

I tested pumping Mana into the enchantments running our brewing equipment in passing, and it worked just fine. The saving in monster cores would be significant in the long term, and it would make for good daily Mana exercise.

Overall, it looked like all my preparations for getting magic had paid off! Heck, some of my prep had turned out unnecessary thanks to [Lesser Mana Crafting]!

Of course, I now had a long list of stuff to add to my to-do. I pulled out my personal calendar and began filling in blank dates.

Now that I didn’t need to spend as much time learning Sigils for crafting, I needed to dedicate some time to learning a basic fireball spell. Just in case we ever ran into Stonetail Wombats or assassins again.

Speaking of which, I really needed a fancy piece of magical protective equipment as well, like Copperpot’s beanie. Since I now had the ability to charge enchantments myself, one of the biggest flaws of magical equipment was removed.

I needed to check with Whistlemop if there was any magic I could do for limited edition Whistlemugs, like glowing glass or something.

So much to do, so much to do.

First, though, it was back out into the massive grumble that was the Goat. Walking in from the quiet sanctity of the brewroom, it was like being hit by a solid wall of noise.

Aqua waved at me as I entered and mouthed, “how was it?”

I gave her two thumbs up and she smiled brilliantly.

And then I was once again knee deep in dirty dishes and drunken dwarves.

—

We stayed open late; it would’ve been foolish to close under the circumstances. Things stayed boisterous and electric, though energy waned as the night went on. By the time four-in-the-morning rolled around, half the clientele was asleep under the benches and tables, and the other half were piled unconscious in the courtyard.

Most of the crew had retired to the brewroom office to discuss the night and decamp. Darrel and Bran were still hard at work cleaning the kitchen, while Bando foraged in the bodies for dirty dishes while swearing under his breath.

We were all bleary eyed and ready for sleep, but there was a small, brown complication sitting on the table in the office.

“Can you run it by me one more time.” Annie said, bags under her eyes. “So I can go to sleep.”

“Aye, I need a nap. I’m not looking forward to sweeping ‘dat lot out of ‘de courtyard first thing in ‘de morning.” Richter agreed.

“Pete, we’re all happy for you, but can\'t this wait for later.” Aqua whined.

“No, you should drink it while it’s fresh.” I said, waving at the mug on the table. I’d quickly prepared it before we started this little meeting.

“I don’t understand,” Annie said.

“It’s nitrogen beer.” I grinned.

“I still don’t understand.”

“I replaced all the carbon dioxide in it with nitrogen.”

Annie sighed. “Okay, but why.”

I gestured at the mug again. “You’ll need to taste it to know why.”

Everyone stared at the mug with blank eyes, until Johnsson finally moved to take it. “Whatever, tha sooner I drink it, the sooner we can all go to sleep.”

He downed the mug in a series of chugs, and I mentally applauded. He’d clearly been practicing his competitive drinking.

When he was done, he put the mug down with a look of consternation on his face. “It… doesn’t taste like beer? But it does?”

“Hah! Yes!” I shouted, pumping my fist.

“It’s not beer?” Aqua asked, peering into the glass suspiciously.

Johnsson hummed and hawed. “Mmm… best way to describe it would be like beer’n… I dunno. Cream? Nah, that’s not right. Dunno, never tasted anything like it. I like it!”

Everyone turned to look at me, and Annie gave a nod. “Alright, you have one minute to tell us what it is and why it’s special before we pass out. Go.”

“Alright. Like I said, It’s beer with the carbon dioxide replaced with nitrogen. Seventy/Thirty nitro to carbon dioxide to be precise. You know how the fermentation process creates carbon dioxide bubbles, and that’s what makes the fizz, right?”

“Ayyyye,” everyone droned.

“Well, I used MAGIC!!!” I punctuated this by making finger wiggles. “To change tha carbon dioxide into nitrogen. It’s possibly the world’s first magical beer!!!”

I waited for cheers but was merely met with some tired clapping.

“This is what you and Richter spent the past half year working on??” Aqua choked. “A spell to make bubbles!?”

“Yes.”

She broke into laughter, slumping back into her chair. “Ahaha! It’s so you!”

“You got it on your first try? I’m impressed.” Richter said with arched eyebrows.

I shrugged. “Eh, not quite. I got an Ability that helped me cheat a bit when I Specialised.”

“Oh, what’d you get?” Aqua sat up, suddenly interested.

“Later.” Annie groaned. “Continue, Pete.”

“Well, Nitrogen changes the smell, flavour profile, and even the texture of beer. If you take the exact same beer and change it to nitrogen instead of carbon dioxide, you’ll get a completely different flavour.”

Back on Earth, the most famous nitro beer was Guinness stout, which had quite literally invented the process. Nitro beers were a fairly recent creation from the 1950s when a mathematician by the name of Michael Ash created a nitrogenating system to solve a problem with cask pouring Guinness. His invention added the creamy texture of nitrogen that soon became synonymous with the beloved Irish stout.

Then, in 1988, Guinness invented the rocket widget, a plastic cap that essentially recreated Ash’s process in a can, and the now-famous tall-can of Guinness was born.

And the world rejoiced!

Sometimes literally. The modern ball widget found in every can of Guinness was voted the invention of the year in 1994 for the UK Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement.

I personally loved the taste of nitrogenated beer, though it had a few quirks. Nitrogen had a poor solubility, which made it hard to keep properly infused into a beer. That was why Michael Ash had so much trouble getting it to work, and why modern nitro beers had widgets in them in the first place. However, infusing nitrogen with magic seemed to bypass the problem entirely, acting more like modern liquid nitrogen techniques.

“The important thing is, we may be able to pitch nitrogen beer to the Brewer’s Guild as a different thing from ‘Sacred Brew’ entirely. It’s still beer, but it’s so different that it may as well be a completely different drink.”

Annie sat up straighter. “And if they approve of that…”

“They may be more receptive to other changes in the future!” Aqua finished, catching on immediately.

Annie clapped her hands together, startling all of us. “Good! I like it, Pete. We’ll talk more in the morning. Now, BED!”

I grinned ear to ear as we trooped off to bed. My initial foray into magical brewing had gone perfectly. And there were so many other things I could still try! I could hardly wait!

But first, sleeeeeeeep.