Cooking with beer. It’s one of my favourite things, along with cooking with wine.

There’s just something about using a drink you made as a primary ingredient in cooking. I never really got into farming – outside of growing grapes for the vineyard – but I imagine a farmer had the same feeling. Crafting something you grew and cared for yourself into a delicious meal that your friends and family can enjoy. There isn’t any feeling like it in the world.

Not quite as awesome as becoming a father, but it was close.

Among dwarves, cooking with beer was unheard of a scant three years ago. Heck, I’d had to do some serious mental reprogramming to convince Bran to cook with The Sacred Brew and start seeing it as an ingredient instead of a monolith.

Of course, I strongly doubt that Bran and I were the first to cook with beer. Dwarves were obsessed enough with it that it had to have been done before. However, Bran and I were quite possibly the first proper mix of capitalistic and stubborn enough to try selling it. We were going to share our recipes with the world and damn the consequences!

There were some angry naysayers at the start, but cooking with beer had been adopted rather quickly by other restaurants. It felt like everyone had been wondering about the idea, but were too scared of public opinion to try. Once one person proved it could be done, everyone just jumped right on board.

We were facing a renaissance in cooking, and I was here to see it!

Exciting!

“Hah! The salt thing was dumber than a sack o’ craggy karst, but this one’s perfect!” Bran crowed. He tossed a knife up, caught it, and then spun it like some kind of bearded Japanese teppan chef. “I’ve got at least fifty recipes with beer already done! It’ll just be a matter of deciding which one’ll sell best!”

“Congratulations, Bran!” Annie smiled warmly. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Aye, a few. But first I wanted to hear your ideas. I think half tha reason we won was that my food paired well with your drink. We have an advantage there that'd be a shame to waste. So what’re you lot brewing?”

“We haven’t really decided yet.” I said. “Though I was in tha middle of a pitch.”

“It was my idea.” Aqua jumped in.

Bran raised one eyebrow. “Ya sure you want to use one of Aqua’s ideas?”

“Hey!” She protested.

I chuckled. “It’s fine. It’s a good idea.”

“Well, what is it then? Tell me quick so I can go and make tha food.” Bran took a seat, squeezing in beside Kirk.

“The idea is to brew something called an imperial brew.”

Bran grunted. “You thinkin’ of copying Riverside’s idea? Dunno if that’ll work twice.”

I waved him off. “No, not at all. Imperial brew is just beer that has a much higher alcohol content than a normal brew.”

“If its got nothin’ ta do with the king, why’d ya call it an Imperial?” Darrel asked, confused. He and Bando were still holding up the doorway, Darrel’s reluctance to enter our space was clear.

“Wait! Don’t –!” Aqua began, but I cut her off.

“I’m glad you asked, Darrel!”

Everyone but Richter and Annie sighed as I launched into my explanation. Of course, raising a teenage daughter who wasn’t the least bit interested in beer had inured me to that particular sigh.

“It all goes back to a King from a faroff country who visited my homeland. This was about four hundred years ago.”

“Whatcha mean yer homeland?” Bando interrupted, looking confused.

“I’d guessed you weren’t from Crack...” Darrel nodded.

“No, I’m from somewhere far off.” I said, pointing up.

Darrel looked up to the ceiling. “You mean tha’ Northlands?”

“Hmm… sure, sort of. Let’s call it the True North Strong and Free. Now, my country had its own version of Barista Brew called a porter. Kirk, you may remember my story about porters?”

Kirk chuckled. “How can I forget? I dunno if everyone else has had a chance to hear it though.” He gestured broadly around the room.

“Nah! We’re good!” Johnsson quickly put in.

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“But I want to – “ Richter began but was quickly shushed.

“The visiting king, Czar Peter, also known as Peter the Great, fell in love with porters,” I continued. “And when he returned home, he requested that the brewers from my homeland send him some. One problem though – the beer couldn’t last long enough to make the trip.”

Darrel nodded. “Aye, some beers spoil real durn quick. Seems like they’re gone soon as we open ‘em. I use ta hear grumblin’ from the merchants all the time ‘bout beer goin’ bad on the road to Minnova.”

“Well, they solved it by massively increasing the ABV – the amount of alcohol in the brew. Of course, that changed the taste, so they added more bittering agent and preservatives as well. The result was a very full tasting beer; a bigger, more everything of what the porter already was. When Czar Peter got his first taste, he fell so deeply in love with it that he declared it his official Imperial beer. The name stuck. From then on when brew anything that has a higher ABV – that’s alcohol content – it’s called an imperial. Though some anti-imperialists prefer to call them doubles or triples instead cause they’re double the fun!”

“Everyone’s anti-imperial these days.” Balin grumped. Annie patted him on the shoulder.

“How different is it, Pete?” Aqua asked, examining the bottles we had lining the walls of the office. “What numbers exactly are we talking about here?”

“Well, as far as I can tell, dwarven beer has an ABV of around two percent or so.”

“Is that a little or a lot?” Johnsson asked.

“It's low. Alcohol in the human kingdoms is a lot stronger.” Kirk put in. “Dunno if that would taste good in beer though.”

I shook my head in denial. “Ach, no! An imperial brew has an ABV of about nine to twelve percent. Hard alcohols like yours are closer to thirty or fourty percent.”

To be fair, we did have super high ABV beers back on earth. Brewmeister was one of the most well known super high ABV breweries. Last I recalled their Snake Venom brew was the highest ABV beer in the world at around seventy percent.

Personally I found super high ABV beers tasted more like spirits than anything else, with the high alcohol content killing the more subtle flavours and aromas expected to find in a good craft brew. Plus, you had to use distilling techniques to get a good tasting beer at such a high ABV, and I considered that cheating.

If you’re a beer brewer, then brew properly dammit!

Ugh. Was I going to need to start keeping an onion in my pocket? I was sounding like one of the Master Brewers!

“The biggest problem is actually going to be our yeast,” I grumbled. “Most yeasts die off or go to ‘sleep’ if the ABV gets too high. I’ll have to cultivate some high ABV yeasts by using [Rapid Aging] to get a moderate ABV then iterate with the survivin’ yeast cake.”

Back on Earth I could just buy a high ABV Yeast. I really did need to fob my yeast textbook off ASAP and get some experts on it.

Annie had her notebook out and was beginning to take notes. “Alright. I’ll need you to teach me more about that later. And are we going to call it imperial brew? Bran’s right; there may be complaints that we’re copying Riverside’s last idea.”

I frowned. “Speaking of which, the higher alcohol content is a great idea, but will it be better than whatever Riverside brews up? Master Brewer Schist’s no slouch.”

Johnsson put up his hand. “Erm. I think the bigger question is if the higher alcohol content will have… similar effects to the last few times you made new brews, Pete?”

I considered him for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure? I mean, I don’t understand the physiology or whatever it was that caused all tha hubbub the last few times. We didn’t get anythin’ like that with the Kinshasa brew, but I suspect more than quadrupling the alcohol content of tha beer may have… consequences.”

Johnsson thumped his fists on his knees, resolutely. “Then I think it’s a good idea. From the local gossip, folk are expecting something special out of us. Somethin’ different, for better or for worse. Let's not disappoint them. That’s our ticket to beating Riverside, methinks.”

“I agree.” Kirk said. “You were even a hot topic in the human community.”

Annie gave me a thumbs up. “Alrighty, then. How do we go about making an Imperial brew Pete?”

“Hah! It’s practically too easy. The trick is more everything. More bittering agent, more malt, more Ancestral seed. It’s called a ‘double’ for a reason; you just double up on everything! But first, we should use our most popular brew as a base. That’ll help.”

“I think that’ll depend. Are we including gnomes in that?” Annie asked, flipping to a section of her notebook.

“Yes?” I said, uncertainly. “They can vote in the contest, can’t they?”

Johnsson coughed. “Dunno about that. I heard that gnomes were being turned away at some of tha voting booths. They were told ‘gnomes can’t properly appreciate Sacred Brew’.”

“Aye! I heard about that!” Bando shouted excitedly. “Just another example of that there durn government keepin’ down our gnomish brethren! If they wants to enjoy Sacred Brew and tell the world what kind they think is best, then let ‘em!”

“Mmmm…honestly, stouts are the best for an imperial brew in my opinion.” I mused. “And our Barista Brew's been around long enough for people to be used to the concept.”

Then I hesitated. “But… let’s not jump into it. Give me a day or two to consider. There are a couple kinds of Imperial brews we could try. Oh! And I could use my new nitro trick!”

Annie frowned. “I thought the whole point of your nitro infusion was to differentiate our brews from regular beer. I’ll repeat. Do we really want to do that for the contest?”

“Eh, we can present it to tha populace as our entry but argue it to tha Master Brewers as something different. Heck, they may use that opportunity ta clarify the difference after tha winner is declared. It’s a good public venue ta do so.”

“What if they disqualify us?” Johnsson frowned.

I hesitated. “I’m not sure I’d care. That would technically mean that we succeeded in separating brewing from the tyranny of the guild. It’d be worth it.”

Annie grumbled. “Let’s talk more about that later.”

Hopefully all the rigamarole would get me that meeting with Barck to compete for my soul, too!

Bran abruptly stood. “I think I’ve got enough, thanks. If yer goin’ fer high alcohol content, then I probably need something greasy. Maybe those beer basted ribs we made, Pete, or somethin’ stuffed.”

“Sounds good. I’m definitely looking forward to taste testing more this round.” I laughed.

There was the patter of feet as Rosie Digger came running into the brewroom.

“Sorry to interrupt you all,” she gasped. “But you need to come out. Master Schist is here to see you! He said he wants to talk about the semi-finals!”

Annie and I gave each other worried glances, then headed to the front entrance. Now what!?