Racking day was always stressful, and the addition of a pair of twitchy, tetchy Gnomes didn’t help.

We’d invited Copperpot to come and have the first taste of our coffee stout, and he’d been happy to oblige. Somehow Whistlemop had found out, and he’d become obsessed with being there too. It was likely that Butler Bimbleberry had found out from Lemontwist and passed it on.

We were partners, and the entire point of this enterprise was to expand brewing to the gnomish communities, so we’d extended an invite. With one caveat.

“You do realize that we were business partners long before you got involved. Pete and I have been through thick and thin together.” Whistlemop whined.

“Bah, thick is right if half the things I’ve heard are true. Mayhaps if you were a better businessman, he’d be partnering with you for this exercise.” Copperpot shot back.

“Some of us have to make do with what we’ve built ourselves, and don’t have a family monolith to prop us up!” Whistlemop gave an evil cackle.

“And yet only one of us is wearing a blindfold!”

“Grrrrrrrr…”

Whistlemop was indeed wearing a blindfold, one that actually had a Thirsty Goat logo on it. Copperpot smugly spun his beanie and walked around our upgraded setup. The shiny new lauter-tun sat where the old mash barrel used to be. It was a thing of beauty, and I only regretted that we couldn’t use it until the current batches were all racked. I wanted to explore making a tea porter next.

“Yes, I can SEE why this lauter-tun is so important, Pete.” Copperpot said jovially, tapping his finger on the shining metal.

Whistlemop sulked.

“You should have seen it before!” Johnsson said brightly. “The mash was a complete pain to stir after tha first half hour. The sack was better, but this tun thing is great!” He grabbed a handle of the knife-and-sparge wheel and gave it an easy spin.

“Yeah. Before. When this place had a layer of dust knee high.” I sighed. It wasn’t a happy sigh.

Copperpot raised his eyebrows. “I’ve been dealing with dwarves my entire life. I can imagine.”

“That was then, this is now.” I led Copperpot over to my four covered experimentation tanks. “These tanks have the stouts in them. The covered tops mean that we’ll probably be able to skip the bottle conditioning stage. At least, I hope so.”

Using [Refine Brew] on all of the cases of bottles after racking had been a nightmare. I was hoping that our product turnover rate and the better carbon dioxide retention of the covered tanks would mean I wouldn’t need to do that any more.

Copperpot looked over at the older tanks, with their open tops and bubbling Ancestral Seed. “I can see why you went with the covered tanks. I imagine that open design invites contamination.”

“Ahhh, I knew a Gnome of Science like yourself would understand.” I purred.

“I don’t understand the levering lids on this new design though.” He pointed to where the lid of a new tank connected to its base with an enormous hinge.

“It’s pressure relief. Ideally there wouldn’t be a lid at all, just a hatch for someone to go in and clean. That or a way to thoroughly sanitise the whole system.” I said.

“I could do something about that…” Copperpot murmured. “How high does the pressure get?”

I pointed to the new wall, where the stones were clearly recently placed. “That high.”

Copperpot’s eyes widened.

“Which is why we scrapped the lidless designs.” Annie smoothly followed up. “But, if an esteemed [Engineer] such as yourself put it together, I’m sure everyone would have complete faith in its safety.”

Copperpot spun his beanie again and thumbed his chin. “I could probably put something together. It’s too late for our current project, but in the future…”

“It would be inval-u-able if you could get it done before we move to Kinshasa.” I said. “The prize for winnin’ the local contest includes a brewery of your own design in the capital.”

“Well, if the King is going to pay, I’ll go all out!” Copperpot gave a wide smile. “Lidless, capable of withstanding high pressure, a pressure release valve, a sanitisation system, a tap. What else would you need?”

“A better way of rackin’ ‘em.” Moony complained, and Markus agreed. “This industrial bottle stick is terrible on the back! No wonder John retired!”

“A better way of rackin’ them.” I agreed. “We’ll talk about designs later.”

“Count me in too.” Annie put in. “Pete has a terrible tendency to go overboard, and I know [Engineers], you’ll keep adding more and more until each tank costs a million mithril. Let’s not agitate the King before we even move in!”

“Running ahead of our beards, are we?” Aqua deadpanned.

“I got tha Princess!” Richter’s voice boomed, and everyone dashed to their stations. As with most racking and brewing days, nearly everyone was present for the pomp and circumstance. Aqua and Tom stood against one wall, with Jeremiah and John beside them. I gave Jeremiah a nod and he gave me a nod back. According to Annie, in the Goldstone clan’s heyday, racking had been a big party, with everyone invited no matter old or young.

Now it was just our ragtag team. Ah well, we were less ragtag by the year.Stolen novel; please report.

“Pete, can you do the final step, please?” Annie asked, motioning to the tanks of stout. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. This next step would decide how special our new brew really was.

I put my hand on the first tank and intoned, “[Refine Brew]!”

*Bing!*

Milestone UsedCombine [Burnt Umber Erdroot] with [Coffee Stout]?

Do you accept?Yes/No