level B1 · the cellar · every pour says how strong it is
Arlesglad Caverns, level B1
Big Steep Fermentables
A brewery and cellar cut into the rock, for wine, beer and kombucha, and everything in it is brewed and fermented here. Try our house styles. Every one of them comes alcohol-free, and that pour is always the first one on the card.
Try our house styles
Every house style comes as two pours, and each one says how strong it is before you take it. The alcohol-free pour comes first and is the same size, because it is not the lesser one.
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Beer
Big Steep Amber
A copper-coloured ale with a bready malt to it and a bitter finish, brewed in steel and conditioned in the cold of the rock.
- Alcohol-freeunder 0.05%the same ale with the alcohol taken out after brewing
- Full strength5.0%as brewed
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Beer
Cave Lager
A pale, clean lager, kept for weeks in the cold before it is poured; the word comes from the German for storing it.
- Alcohol-freeunder 0.05%the same lager with the alcohol taken out
- Full strength4.4%as brewed
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Beer
Handrail Stout
A black stout with roasted grain in it, coffee and bitter chocolate, and a thick pale head.
- Alcohol-freeunder 0.05%the same stout with the alcohol taken out
- Full strength6.2%as brewed
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Wine
Level B1 Red
A soft, dark red wine with plum and a little pepper in it, rested in steel tanks in the rock.
- Alcohol-freeunder 0.05%the same wine with the alcohol taken out
- Full strength12.5%as made
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Wine
The Pale Steep
A crisp, pale white wine that tastes of green apple and cut grass.
- Alcohol-freeunder 0.05%the same wine with the alcohol taken out
- Full strength11.5%as made
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Kombucha
Ginger House Kombucha
Black and green tea fermented with a live culture, then fermented again with fresh ginger until it sparkles.
- Alcohol-freenonethe same tea and ginger, not fermented, so there is no alcohol in it at all
- Fermenteda trace, under 0.5%as fermented; the trace varies from batch to batch, so this gives the most it can be rather than a number
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Kombucha
Hibiscus House Kombucha
Tea fermented with hibiscus flowers, deep red and sharp, like cranberries without the sweetness.
- Alcohol-freenonethe same tea and hibiscus, not fermented, so there is no alcohol in it at all
- Fermenteda trace, under 0.5%as fermented; the trace varies from batch to batch, so this gives the most it can be rather than a number
What the strengths mean
- A percentage is how much of the drink is alcohol, by volume. It is on every pour, before you take it, the way every button on this street says how long it runs before you press it.
- Alcohol-free, for a beer or a wine, means under 0.05%. That is the same drink with the alcohol taken out after it was made, and a brewed drink with the alcohol taken out can keep the faintest trace of it. If you need none at all, the kombucha’s alcohol-free pours have none.
- Kombucha is never quite zero, and ours says so. It is fermented, so there is always a little alcohol in it, and how much varies from one batch to the next. So its fermented pour gives the most it can be, under 0.5%, rather than a number that would be wrong half the time. Its alcohol-free pour is the same tea and fruit, not fermented.
House rules
- Nobody here asks why you are not drinking, or whether you are sure, or whether you want to try a little of the other one.
- Nothing here counts how many you have had. No rounds, no games, nobody keeping up with anybody.
- The pours with alcohol in them are for adults. Everything else in the cellar is for everybody.
- Nothing here is good for you, and nothing is bad for you either. None of it is a remedy or a supplement, kombucha included. It is something to drink.
- The vessels are glass and steel on bare rock, lit from behind, so the light comes through the drink. There is no wood in here.
The house styles, their names and every word about them are ours. Credits are in the liner notes.
Job marker — a glass carboy standing on the cellar floor
You have found a job marker. The Adventurer’s Guild is a shopfront on the street, and it posts jobs that send you round these rooms. Take the code below to its board and that job is done. Nothing here is scored, nothing expires, and one is a perfectly good number of jobs to do.
The job: The cellar at the top of the lift
Before the code: Every house style in Big Steep comes as two pours. Which pour always comes first?
Hint 1
It is in the sentence in bold just under Try our house styles.
Hint 2
Look at the two boxes under any house style, and read the left one.
Last hint
The one without.
Give me the answer
The answer is The alcohol-free one. The alcohol-free one, and at the same size as the other, because it is not the lesser pour. Many people do not drink, for all kinds of reasons and for none, and a cellar that listed that pour second or smaller would be telling them they were an afterthought. The room's own tool refuses a house style whose first pour has alcohol in it.
Taking the answer is a real way through this, not a lesser one. Nothing is watching and nothing is written down.
Quest code: STEEPED
That is the one.
The alcohol-free one, and at the same size as the other, because it is not the lesser pour. Many people do not drink, for all kinds of reasons and for none, and a cellar that listed that pour second or smaller would be telling them they were an afterthought. The room's own tool refuses a house style whose first pour has alcohol in it.
Quest code: STEEPED