Beer

Beer, since time immemorial, has been a staple of human diet. At a time where most water was improper to human consumption, and drinking water was running the risk of illnesses, beer was the drink of choice. You can find a 19th century prince lamenting the fact that hot chocolate, recently introduced, was not the right drink for his troops, and that it would never displace beer as the main soldier's drink during campaigns.

In A Tale in the Desert, Beer is a modern technology. Like all food and drink, it has a Beer tasting attribute associated, that raises as you drink and appreciate the subtleties of beer and beer tastes. For 100 points, you gain one perception, for 200 points, you gain a second perception point, and for 250 points, you gain a third perception point. You cannot go over 256 beer tasting points, which means going from second to third point is harder than from first to second.

Beer is drunk on a Ceremonial Tasting Table (like wine). Each keg of beer provides 21 drinks. Unlike wine, drinking the same beer multiple times in a row can provide multiple beer tasting points (as your drunkness raises?). Up to 3 points have been recorded in some cases, needing 7 or more drinks.

Beer is made in a Kettle and bottled in a Small barrel. Beer making takes from one hour to three hours, and the result unfortunately spoils moderately fast in the keg. Once done, the beer must be drunk within 4 to 48 hour, depending on the beer potency.

The Beer brewing skill is obtained from an university. It can be complemented by the Quick brewing skill that is obtains for 500 Barley (raw) at a School of Body. The quick brewing divides all delays below by 3.

Brewing

The brewing phase lasts an hour. It is started with 60 Wood and 25 Water. Once this is done, a countdown begins, and you can add a variety of ingredients to the mix. Each ingredient adds various basic elements, some which are static, and some which depend on at what time the ingredient is added.

• Barley is proportional to the length of time it stayed in batch. It goes from full to 1/6th during the hour.
• Color is proportional to the length of time it stayed in batch. It goes from full to 1/6th during the hour
• Tannin is proportional to the length of time it stayed in batch. It goes from full to 1/6th during the hour
• Grassy is proportional to the length of time it stayed in batch. It goes from full to 1/6th during the hour
• Honey is inversely proportional to the time it stayed to the batch. It is equal to 1 / (0.05 + time), where time goes from 1 to 0 during the hour
• Vitamins are inversely proportional to the length of time they stay in the batch. They are equal to the reference value above / (0.2 + time), where time goes from 1 to 0 during the hour

Microbes

The fermenting phase lasts up to two hours, at the player's discretion. During that phase, microbes (yeasts, lactobacters, acetobacters, molds) enter the open brewing kettle, converting sugar and vitamins into final results. This is known as a Lambic beer (lambics are beers brewed in open air, using only microbes from the surrounding. Lambics will differ from region to region, as the microbes differ). Each microbe enters at a specific time, depending on the kettle position.

Typically, the brewer will run several Petri dish tests, in which water is brewed (without any addition), and the kettle sealed at intervals, to pin the order, and the time for each microbe.

Each microbe may be active, or inactive, according to specific rules. The resulting brew will be a combination (average) of the effects of each active microbe.

Note that yeasts will convert glucose, then maltose into alcohol.

Explications on the following table:

• (Yxx are Yeasts, Lxx are Lactobacters, Axx are Acetobacters, and Mxx are Molds)
• Produces alcohol: the microbe produces up to that amount if left alone
• glucose left: the microbe will not process the last N glucose, if any
• maltose left: the microbe will not process the last N maltose, if any
• vitamins: vitamins consumed per sugar (negative values)
• vitamins left: the microbe will not process the last N vitamins. Without vitamins, the conversion of glucose or maltose does not occur
• other columns: elements produced per sugar consumed. (M) indicates the processing of Maltose only, (G) indicates the processing of glucose only
• Bold items indicate notable properties of the microbe. Very potent microbes, and microbes that produce a detectable flavor (i.e. whose alcohol ceiling times flavor ratio is above 200) are indicated in this way. (or 100 for grassy flavor)

Tasting

After closing, the beer must be drawn into a Small barrel. At that point, the exact statistics, and the beer type are displayed.

Qualifiers are as follow:

Note that, for the individual flavors, you will have "muddled flavors" if there are more than two flavors at the stronguest value. A flavor will trump lesser flavors, and often, a noticeable flavor will mask any hint of other flavors (meaning the lesser flavors are not detectable while tasting). This depends on the exact values, not the attribute itself. For example, a noticeable flavor of 410 alongside a hint of flavor of 390 should be both detectable in the final beer, while a noticeable flavor of 410 would completely mask a hint of flavor of 210.

Brewing 101

Brewing typically occurs in four phases.

Phase 1 is the search for a specific microbe, for a specific desired effect. During that phase, the brewer drops Petri tests (a Kettle) at intervals (often about ~20-30 coords space). These kettles are filled with water and fired, and left for the the 3h30 (real time) it takes for a beer run to occur from start to end. The brewer then checks what microbes are found at each tested spot, and decides which microbe to pursue.

Optionally, if the desired microbe shows up, but not in first position, another set of tests can be run in a grid around the original spot, at shorter space intervals, trying to pinpoint the place where the microbe is close. It is not guaranteed to succeed at this, though.

The research phase is shortened if you use a yeast map filled with pre-existing data.

Phase 2 is the isolation phase. A number of kettles are dropped at the selected spot, all close together (barely overlapping). The kettles are then used for another Petri test, but this time, each kettle is sealed at a different time between 7200 and 0. Typically, the interval is divided in as many parts as you have kettles to run this test. With four kettles, you would then seal at 5760, 4320, 2880 and 1440. Armed with these results, you can further pinpoint the entry time of the first microbe by running another test (for example, the microbe enters before 2880, but is not alone, so you would test sealing at 4032, 3744, 3456 and 3168 at 288s intervals).

For some kettles, it is possible that the entry of the microbes occur in different orders. If that is so, Disassemble the kettle (all of the materials are recovered, regardless of your salvage skills), and rebuild it on the other side of your set of kettles.

Phase 3 is spent doing test beers. A set of recipes are tried into the brew, trying to find out the behaviour of the brew. A simple run with 20 light roasted malt and 16 honey, should give you a bad beer, but a first idea of how much glucose and maltose is left by the microbe. A couple of recipes will give you an idea of how much alcohol max can be produced (example: 50 light malt at start, 50 light malt at end and 50 honey. This delivers 1700 sugar and 2200 vitamins, which should enable the microbe to work to its maximum). With two or three test recipes, you can then begin to determine which flavors are produced by the microbe, and customize one of the beer calculator spreadsheet). This step can be skipped if your microbe is already known (see the above tables).

Phase 4 is the exploitation phase. Now that you know what the microbes do, and how to use them, make the brews you like!

For the impatient, here's a couple of beer recipes that are ready made for some yeasts. These recipes aren't the most optimal ones for the result, and are usually tailored for specific yeasts, so adapt them for a different yeast at your own risks.

Using beer predictors

If you have a Microsoft Excel® program (usually, as part of some version of Microsoft Office®), you can use a single yeast predictor.

• Get the spreadsheet referenced here,
• look on the microbe table above,
• copy the microbe stats in the column referencing the microbe stats
• and then, enter your recipe above.

The predictor should give you the resulting beer. Note that the predictor is still a little shaky on the honey tastes (they're correct within 2-3%, usually), and doesn't take into account the vitamins floor.

Thanks

Last modified: Dec. 16, 2003