Brewer: Aerick

Placing: Third Place

Beer contains four ingredients:
Water
Yeast
Hops
Barley

Nothing else can be directly added to the beer, or it will be polluted, and
not really be beer, but some cheap additive-laden hogswill.

Now, the source of the water is very important.  Should you pick up water
from the tramped through puddles of Puddleby, well, enjoy the mud.
If, however, you find a secluded pond, say, the oasis on Fire Island,
untouched much by people, you're going to have much purer Beer.

The Yeast concentration depends on how strong you want the beer to be,
alcoholically.  How quickly it intoxicates.  Three yeast will be equivalent
to the concentration in an existing keg, more will be stronger, less, less
so.

The Hops determine the relative strength of the brew.  More will be
stronger, less will be weaker.  The stronger the beer, the more it will need
to cook to impart the full flavor, and the longer it will have to stand
afterwards.

Barley, you just need 2-3, depending on the flavor you want.  More or less
can be added, but will mess with the flavor, so unless you're weird in your
tastes, much change will be screwy.

Materials:
A container to carry the water in
A copper boiling container
An empty keg for storage afterward
Mugs.  Lots of 'em.

The base preparation is to boil the beer in a copper pot (a larger container
is needed for a keg, but unless the brewery will allow access to theirs,
anything over a pot will be impractical)  Time depends on relative strength
of ingredients.  About 3 hrs should do the trick for a basic beer (like we
have now).

The beer then needs to be let stand for a time also dependent on strength,
but 8 hrs would suffice for a beer of present strength.
During the letting stand process is when additional effects can be added to
the beer.  I say effects, and not ingredients, because they are subtler than
that.

If one wanted a truly bitter beer, leaving the keg to stand in the arachnoid
cavern, where it could gather the faintest hint of arachnoid poisons which
permeate the chamber, would result in a very interesting and potent flavor.
Cheap imitations might try to just dump of drop of 'noid poison, and skip
the travel and danger of setting the keg up.
A sweet flavor could be imparted by leaving the keg to stand in the meadow;
however, this runs two risks.  If the damned Orga are willing and able to
steal our catapult, you can be damned sure that they're rally for a good
drink in the making.  Also, if you leave the keg untended, other exiles may
happen by and steal your perfection in progress.
A final example of a flavor effect would be to generate a woody beer, which
could be left in either Jannar's Grove, or the Tree Giant Breeding Ground.
The Tree Giants would with no doubt disapprove of the malformed trees of a
keg, and might attempt to destroy what their primitive bark perceives as
undesirable.
Other locations for other effects could readily be found, but alas, my [ooc]
knowledge of beer has run out, and so I can offer no more.
 

Respectfully submitted to the Dwarven Militia, *