New Brew

by Mark Lashway

  “Have any of you ever worked in a brewery before?” the abbot asked.

  “I did an internship in one,” Tommy Indelicato replied, “but that’s about all.”

  “Then maybe you’ll know something about how this operates?” the abbot continued.

  “Well, if I have to hazard a guess,” Indelicato began, wearing a nervous grin, “I’d say that most of your early process stuff happens up on the two upper tiers before the beer gets dropped down to the first floor for the later stages.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Abbot John replied. Pointing to a far corner on the uppermost floor, where there was a barely noticeable garage-type door, he said, “When we get our grain delivered, it gets taken off the truck and put on a conveyor belt that lifts it up to that door there. Next to the door you’ll see that squat, rectangular machine that is our malt mill, into which we feed the malt one sack at a time for crushing. Now, notice the galvanized metal bin beneath it that collects all of the crushed barley. We keep it there until we’re ready.”

  “There’s a chute leadin’ from the bottom of that bin into that big tank, so I’ll guess that that’s the feed line into the mash tun,” Cam said confidently.

  “That’s precisely what it is,” the abbot replied. “We keep the grain in the bin while we fill the mash tun with the appropriate amount of water and heat it to the right temperature.”

  “Which is?” Bobby Bobb asked.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s something I won’t reveal,” the abbot politely replied, shaking his head. “Anyway, once the water reaches the right temperature, we open the chute and dump the grain into the water. There are mash paddles inside the mash tun that occasionally turn to mix the mash around, so as to even out the temperature within the mass and prevent hot and cool spots. That digital display on the side of the mash tun, if you can see it, displays the temperature and if the mash starts to cool at all, will tell the heating element to turn on until the mash is back to the right temperature. We mash the batch at that temperature for one hour minimum, then we take a sample out to see if the conversion is complete.”

  The group just stood there shaking their heads and grinning at each other at the wonder of it all. Each one of them, except for Inkwell, fantasized, like all homebrewers, about being able to play with such magnificent toys, accustomed as they were to a world of small boiling pots, hand-held mash paddles, various types of fermenters and the like. Each of them, except Inkwell, knew that no self-respecting brewer trying to protect their investment would ever allow amateurs like them anywhere near their equipment without some credentials from a recognized brewing program. There were several regretful sighs.

  Abbot John allowed them to stew in their melancholy for a minute. He knew quite well what these GWIBErs were like. They required a short leash. To do anything less would be like letting Goths loose on Rome. He noticed Richie Hobbs and Tommy Indelicato practically salivating as they gazed at the brewery. It gave him a very uneasy feeling.

  “When the mash is complete,” the abbot continued, “then we sparge. Notice that pipe leading from the water tank into the mash tun. That water is heated to a certain temperature and then allowed to flow down into the mash tun, where a sprinkler at the end of the line sprays the water evenly over the entire mash. Water is allowed in at approximately the same rate at which the mash is emptied out. This….”

  “Allows you to maintain a thin layer of water on top of the spent grain, so as to maximize sugar collection,” Ralphie Quinn interrupted. “Oops. Sorry….”

  “That’s right,” Abbot John replied with a patient smile. “So then we’re able to get the most out of our mash. When that is all done, our boil kettle over there is ready to do its job.” He pointed over at a huge tank, aware that with so many of these around that they might not realize which one he was talking about. “Notice how similar it is to the mash tun, with hatches and temperature gauges. But in the end, the processes we follow aren’t much different from those that homebrewers like you perform.”

  “Only your top-of-the-line equipment allows you the precision to arrive at calculated outcomes, without as many variations as homebrewers often encounter,” Eight Ball added. Cam noticed several of the others, who all happened to be far more experienced brewers than himself, close their eyes and nod in a silent amen, brother.

  “Hmmph!” Tommy Indelicato snorted. “I’ll never forget that time I made what I planned to be a Scottish wee heavy, only the original gravity reading on the hydrometer came in too low because my conversion didn’t pan out as well as I’d planned.”

  “You?! You should have seen the time….” Vince Costa began.

  “Guys, I’m sure that Abbot John’s time is precious,” Sonny cut them off. “The war stories can wait for another time.” Both men gave him resentful looks.

  “I would be interested in hearing them sometime,” the abbot responded graciously. “Anyway, now that the process is on to the boiling stage, we get the wort to a full boil for half an hour, then add our hops through one of those hatches and let the wort boil for another hour.”

  “An hour and a half of boiling,” Bobby Bobb mumbled, then said no more. The rest of them, except Inkwell, knew that homebrewers usually only boiled theirs for an hour.

  “After the boil, the hot wort is pumped through a heat exchanger….”

  “In order to get it cooled as quickly as possible so your yeast can be put into it to start fermentation!” Billy Bomb cried, unable to control himself.

  “Yeah, and that prevents bad yeast in the air from taking control and ruining the beer! Again, the never-ending struggle between good and bad!” Wally the Preacher piped up.

  “Boy, do I know about that!” Bobby Bobb added. “I remember that time….”

  “Guys! Enough!” Sonny bellowed, drawing curious glances from around the brewery. Inkwell made no effort to help control the crew, overwhelmed as he was by what he was seeing.

  “Anyway,” Abbot John continued, trying to maintain an air of patience, “once the wort is where it needs to be temperature-wise, it is emptied into the fermentation tanks over there.” He pointed at several large tanks. “Then we add our yeast, as you know.”

  “What kind of yeast do you use?” Vince Costa asked. “Or is that a secret too?”

  “It is a secret,” the abbot replied. “It’s our own proprietary strain, developed over time.”

  Cam suddenly felt uneasy, although he didn’t know why. Everyone else whispered between themselves, impressed by the abbey’s fine accomplishment with its beer. A quick glance caught Abbot John looking him over, unable to hide a tiny little bit of worry in his expression. What’s up with him? Oh….he’s suspicious of me. Why would he worry about me? He’s got more important things to think about, like Manuel’s murder….the abbey’s beers….murder. How can those things….I don’t get it. He looked over at the monk once more, but Abbot John had already turned away.

  “The next step is to let the batch ferment for a few days,” the abbot continued. “We let it reach peak fermentation, then we add a quantity of that,” he said, pointing to a long metal countertop upon which sat dozens of jugs of what appeared to be some kind of syrup. Some of the stuff was black, some amber and some virtually clear.

  “That would be Belgian candi syrup,” Richie Hobbs said.

  “That’s right,” the abbot replied. “It will provide a bit more flavor to the finished beer, help attenuate it a little more and add just a bit more alcohol.”

  “Attenuate?” Inkwell muttered, completely lost now. “What the hell is that?”

  “It means that the beer will finish just a bit drier,” Vinnie Costa told him.

  “Yes,” Abbot John said. “After we do that, then we allow the fermentation to take its course, with the temperature controlled at all times. Every few days we take hydrometer readings, which will tell us when that part is complete.”

  “What do you do for the packaging?” Bucky Fritsch asked. “Do you keg any of it?”

 
; “Absolutely not,” the abbot told him. “We follow the traditional methods, which we believe provide the best beer. In other words, we bottle condition our beers. When fermentation is complete, we rack the beer off the sediment and filter it. We move the beer into other tanks, where we add fresh yeast and an appropriate amount of priming sugar. Then the bottles receive the beer, are capped, and then sent to the cellar for a while to condition.”

  There was a bit more to it than what had been presented, Cam realized, but he immediately grasped what an able group speaker that Abbot John was. The man gave out just enough information to keep people’s attention without overloading them.

  A sudden racket grabbed everyone’s attention. They stared at the source, a bottling machine that had been started, a small conveyor belt feeding bottles into a closed section. When the bottles emerged from the other side they were filled with beer. They proceeded on to the next part where they were capped and shot off to the end of the line, where some monks quickly grabbed bottles and placed them into wooden crates. Other monks then grabbed the filled crates and hauled them off while still others replaced them with empty ones. The GWIBE men simply stood there and gaped, swallowing hard, dreaming of having a few bottles for themselves.

  “I just wanted you to have a nice finale,” Abbot John chuckled, motioning toward the bottling machine. “That concludes the tour. Now you can sample our products.” As the abbot led the group to the next spot, Cam noticed Sonny wearing a happy smile. Yeah, the guys pretty much behaved themselves. This whole thing went really well.

  The abbot motioned them to follow him. He led them to a far corner of the brewery away from the main operations. Cam saw that the wall over there was mostly covered with racks holding as many cases of the brewery’s beers as they could possibly hold. The floor was seemingly covered with rows of cases stacked about six feet high in Cam’s estimation. None of them suspected that there was a small open area between all of the beer until they came upon it. In the middle of the space was a plastic folding table. More than a dozen bottles sat on it and they immediately noticed that the bottles had a variety of cap colors.

  “Abbot John, why….” Inkwell began, confused.

  “Why do the bottles have different colored caps?” the abbot interrupted. “It’s common practice actually, to designate a particular style. In our brewery, the red cap is for dubbel, blue for tripel and the brown for the brothers’ ration.”

  A short silence followed as the men gazed lovingly at the bottles containing the delicious brews, their reputation having swept through GWIBE already. They reminded Cam of slobbering dogs, although Sonny maintained his dignity. Cam felt his face flush when he realized that there was a lot of saliva building up in his mouth.

  “Now I must take care of a few things,” Abbot John announced. “I would like Sonny and Mr. Inkwell to accompany me. Gentlemen, start helping yourselves.” Sonny and Inkwell made sure to grab a bottle for themselves as the cleric led them off. As he popped the red cap off his bottle, Cam felt a twinge of resentment at being excluded. Clearly, Abbot John was still determined to keep him at arm’s length. Then an image of Shauna popped into his thoughts and he got over it.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  “You’re a bunch of bastards!” Sonny yelled at his companions as the monk driving the tractor disappeared out of sight. Abbot John had gotten one of his people to haul them in a hay wagon back to this spot on the outskirts of GWIBE. The Four Horsemen either sat or sprawled on the sun-baked ground, along with Bucky Fritsch, Tommy Indelicato and Bobby Bobb. The others remained standing but were staggering, except for Inkwell and Sonny, who had only had the one they’d grabbed before going off with Abbot John. Cam was a bit buzzed but had limited himself so that he wouldn’t get into trouble with Shauna.

  “Sixty-nine beers gone!” he roared. “We were only gone about an hour with our two beers and you miserable cockroaches sucked down almost three fucking cases in that time!”

  “But it was so gooooood,” Richie Hobbs moaned contentedly. “It was too tempting….”

  “Shut up!” Sonny screamed. “The beers for us were the ones he placed on that fucking table! What are you, stupid or what? What the hell made you think that you could just grab cases off the stacks and drink them down? Do you know how much money they could’ve sold that beer for? Huh, do you? You embarrassed all of us, all of us! You made me look like a fucking clown for bringing you there! And some of you idiots wonder why GWIBE has the reputation it does, why no town that ever hosts us ever wants to see us come back. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

  “Urrrrrrrrrrp!” somebody belched.

  “Who said that?!” Sonny bellowed. “Who fucking said that?!”

  Everyone being GWIBErs, nobody said a word.

  -17-

  Duke Lando cracked his knuckles and ran his fingers through his hair. He’d already bitten considerable skin off his lower lip from the stress that he was feeling. The fact that his men from St. Louis were on the way had lifted his spirits earlier. Now he was worried again.

  What I’d give to know why that goddamned abbot had all of those GWIBE insiders over to the abbey today. What did he say to them? That investigator, Inkwell, and that other fucking cop, that Cameron Witter, were there, too. It can only mean bad things. Wait a minute! Abbot John had a group over as a cover. He really only wanted to talk to Inkwell and Witter. That’s it! He was directing them to something….something he was suspicious about. Shit, he has to be on to Joey!

  “Well, I was gonna pull him out really soon anyway,” Lando muttered to himself. “It’ll just have to be tonight.” Suddenly, he felt uncomfortable in his tent. Getting up out of his lawn chair, he put on his boots and left the tent to contact a few of his agents to tell them to abort. He would have them hang out, then come to a meeting, where Lyle and Frank would be waiting.

  The person listening to the bug on Lando’s cot took their headphones off and sighed. Lando’s revelation was only of minor interest, since it had been obvious that Joey Creed would be making his move soon. It would be tonight, although darkness was still several hours away, as the afternoon sun was only slightly on its downward arc.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  Cam whistled merrily as he strode down the dirt road en route to Little Germany. This was turning out to be a fine day. Upon his return to GWIBE, Shauna had been very pleased that he’d kept himself fairly sober. They hadn’t been able to make any plans for tonight, since she was scheduled to judge more competitions later. Tonight was a big night for Belgian and related styles. They would start right after dark and go until about midnight. Tired of the GWIBE scene, she’d talked Helen into taking a long walk with her off-site, leaving him alone again. It would be the perfect time to go cheer up Gerhard and Johann after the beatings they’d taken.

  There were several guests sitting around when he arrived, though he knew all of them to be nothing more than hangers-on, followers looking to score some free brew. Little Germany wasn’t as festive as last year, and far less crowded. GWIBE is a tough town, Cam thought. Not many folks are willing to hang out with uncool people, and there’s nothing like losing to make somebody uncool. The somber mood inside wasn’t helped by some of Jan Vosloo’s fans taunting the Bavarians from outside.

  “Hello, Cam,” Streicher greeted him in a very muted way. Kopp said nothing but went to immediately pour Cam a beer. There were deep lines on Streicher’s face, and the red-rimmed eyes told the story of lack of sleep. Despite his assurances at the competition that love would see him through, Streicher had obviously been deeply affected by his losses.

  “How’s it goin’, guys?” Cam responded, drawing looks from everybody that wondered whether he was a blooming idiot. Yeah, that was a pretty stupid question. I should’ve thought that one through better. “Mmm, never mind. Gee, I’m glad to be able to make it here. I almost lived here last year.”

  “Yes, those were good times,” Kopp replied sadly as he handed him the beer, almost like there wo
uld never be good times again. “It’s not meant to be like that this year.”

  Cam took a sip of the amber-colored brew, and he recognized it right off as märzenbier. Gerhard had taken only second place with it in competition this year, but it was still really good. He made sure to express appreciation for it. “So, what’s on the agenda for the rest of the festival?” he asked, hoping that they would come out of their dazes.

  Both Germans merely shrugged like they didn’t care. Cam felt the irritation rising within him. This is total bullshit. Phil Utah, Tom Deville and Clay Sharper are to play the part of assholes. Sonny and Helen are to be take-no-crap straight guys, Shauna is to be the goodie two-shoes and these Germans….they’re supposed to be arrogant, smug brewers of fine beer!

  “So, how much time do you intend to waste feelin’ sorry for yourselves?” Cam sneered, not caring now about their feelings. Again, no response from the Bavarians, although it did cause some of the guests to look up from their beers in shock.

  “Fuck you, Cam,” came a reply from a man named Andrew Ionnides.

  Cam threw his cup of beer at the man’s head, beer splashing out as the missile headed towards its target. Ionnides ducked in time and the cup bounced harmlessly off the tent’s heavy canvas siding. The man rose to his feet, stunned, the color draining from his face.

  “No….fuck you, all of you,” Cam retorted, his calm demeanor unnerving the gathering even more. “These guys are flounderin’, they need to get their game back, and what are all of you doin’? Are you helpin’ them at all? Fuck no, you’re just sittin’ around at this funeral reception, cryin’ in the free beers they’re providin’ you. Speakin’ of which, Johann, pour me another beer, please.” Kopp quickly did so.

  “Cam, it’s no use,” Streicher said softly. “It’s hopeless.”

  “My, my, it’s a different story when the shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it?” Cam snarled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I remember in particular one night last year when you told me somethin’ to the effect that you believed that I would eventually become a good brewer. You said that Americans, like Germans, won’t let some present setback crush them. Did you really mean it when you said it, Gerhard? Or was it just a line of shit put out by a guy who has never suffered any setbacks? Do you have the character to overcome the misfortune you were talkin’ about?”