Brewing and drinking

Ale

• Sprout barley with water, then dry it at a fire the same day, before it molds, to make Pale Malt.
• Mill the malt, then mash it at a fire with water for a Pail of Sweet Wort.
• Boil the sweet wort with hop cones for Hopped Wort. Sweet wort spoils within half a day, so don't leave it.

Mead

Honey and water at a fire make a Pail of Honey Must. See Bees and the well for honey.

The barrel

Look at a fermenting barrel and choose Check the fermenting barrel. Tip in up to six pails of one kind, then Pitch & seal with a yeast starter, or seal it wild and hope. With yeast, ale takes about a real day and mead about two. Wild takes far longer and yields half as much. The barrel keeps working while you're away. A yeast batch gives you a fresh starter back.

• The barrel runs a few degrees warmer than the air, and it follows the weather slowly. Below 10 °C nothing happens, and too much heat spoils part of the batch. Aim for a cool, steady room.
• Finished ale sours after three days. Mead keeps about ten.
• Bottle it: each pail fills eighteen bottles, and each needs an empty glass bottle. Ale needs a sugar or a honey to prime it.
• Bottles need a few hours to condition. Open one early and it's flat or harsh.

Drinking

A drink eases the mind a little, though only the first couple each hour count, and it spoils your aim slightly. Your body tracks blood alcohol and burns it off at a real rate: about ten minutes for an ale and half an hour for a mead. You go from merry to tipsy, then drunk, when the world sways and you can't sprint, and then very drunk, when you'll fall over if you hurry. Six ales in a row or a couple of meads will do it.

Mead is much stronger than ale. Don't drink it before a fight.