Craft Brew Caper Part II
The forced laughter and chatter of the guests attending the Crown Ball was highly entertaining to the great beer thief. The owners of the breweries came together annually to showcase their latest drafts. Some of the brews showcased were seasonal and some would be limited edition, but all were considered to be of extreme high quality. Only the top ten breweries of Headbrough could have their casks showcased. It was the desire of all black boots to cellar rats alike to have their brewery win the all coveted Golden Hop award. It was the envy of all brewery owners and for the last six years, the medallion had hung around the neck of Hornblower owner, Jack Pilot. It was rumored that Pilot was running a spicy brew this year to spite the taste of his cousin and long time rival Tony Alessi, owner of Sir Hops A Lot, the very brewery that our Rodger represented financially.
To Rodger, it was simply grand to watch folks greet each other pleasantly or with haughty competitive remarks followed with curled lips. These people were so stuck on their own beer that they rarely tried the flavors of competitive brewers for pleasure. It was all about the game of outdoing one another and winning that prized medallion. The competitive blindness was a major contribution for Rodger to come to his decision to plot the craft brew caper.
As Rodger accepted a stein of a wheat beer (from a rival brewery) off a silver tray, he reflected on how he closed the other day...
It wasn't uncommon for Rodger to bring his pug Francis to his office in the back corner of the brewery. Francis had been Rodger's constant shadow and companion for four years. It was sometimes difficult for people to recognize Rodger without the round eyed pooch. The breweries were dog friendly, but some of the meaner of the black booted beer breewers would poke fun at Rodger's dog. Rodger would pat Francis on the head and assure him that he was a perfectly normal dog. Wilhemena never said anything about Rodger's dog...she really didn't say much at all. She was a quiet, diligent worker that didn't much associate with the other black boots. Rodger adored her all the more for that.
At the close of work Wednesday, Rodger prepared his final report for the Millstone Craft. Every accountant for every brewery had to submit their reports to both their own staff and to Millstone in order to keep scandal at bay. It was an effective system, mostly. But for his plot, Rodger decided to twist numbers just a tad to cover his tracks.
Rodger’s daily routine included being among the last people to leave the brewery. He preferred the quiet in the late evenings, when the rest of the team would move on to the pubs and the cool, comforting silence of the brew house would settle in. It was during these evening hours when Rodger would finish his reports with ease and his thoughts would drift. Normally his thoughts would stray to the beautiful Wilhemena, but for the last few weeks his distractions had been distracted.
The news that he received from his doctor, “Sorry, you’re dying,” had sung like a chorus of demons stuck on repeat in his mind. It wasn’t until the night, that magical night three weeks ago when dreams of the great caper fluttered through his thoughts, planting the seed that he had been nourishing ever since.
This Wednesday night marked that phase two of his operation was about to begin. The page-less notes that he had taken in his mind over the last two weeks had led him to the storehouse in his own brewery for phase one. The plan seemed easy enough: get the desired barrel, switch it with the phony, then sneak it home to the neighbor’s underground brewery without being noticed or caught. Any aspect of this plan made the palms of Rodger’s hands sweat, but this was not the time for rationale or logic to rise up - this was the time for breaking rules.
Rodger waved goodbye to one of the few black boots that gave him any sort of courtesy attention and the great doors entering the main hall of the brewery were closed. The majority of the oil lanterns that burned in the majority of the brew-house were dimmed leaving behind a faint orange glow in the hall over which Rodger looked. The shiny bodied mash tuns with their individual coal heated ovens that usually funneled heat within were cleaned and ready for tomorrow’s next batch of malt. On the other side of the aisle that ran down the two-hundred foot long hall were the lauter tuns, which were probably still warm to the touch after a full day of making wort. At the far end of the hall was the packaging room. After the ingredients were turned into their particular styles of beer, they were poured into oak barrels and rolled into the final phase in the production process, the storage room. Those barrels were highly monitored and kept at a constant cool temperature, regulated by the island’s aquifer that was redirected to run through pipes surrounding the storage room to act as a room cooler. From that cooled room, barrels would be rolled out onto the back of trolleys and wagons where they would be distributed to different pub owners and merchants throughout the island. Some would stay domestic, but a good portion would be shipped overseas. Sir Hops A Lot truly did produce some of the finest ales and pale ales around, and it was for this reason that Rodger chose this one to be struck.
Exhaling deeply, Rodger looked down to where Francis lay curled up beside his feet. “Are you ready, Francis?”
Francis turned his round yellow eyes up to his papa and proceeded to pant and gargle-breathe in that special way that pugs do.
Patting Francis on the top of his rounded head, Rodger stood up and calmly proceeded to finish his nightly routine by placing his thick, leather bound notebook in his satchel. Once his belongings were secure, he picked up his building keys and held them close in his hands that were shaking. “This is it,” he said more to himself than to Francis.
The pair of them set off down the long aisle bound for the storage room. Little Francis’ body waddled with excitement as he trooped with his papa on this mission. Francis had never been this way before. He liked how the floor, wet from being hosed down, made his feet feel cool - it was usually far too warm in this hall for Francis’ tastes.
The security guards would not check the inside of the hall until precisely 7:30pm. Checking his pocket watch for the hundredth time, Rodger saw that he had plenty of time. It was only a quarter after. On the countless evenings before when he would greet the security guards as they were entering, it was always at 7:30pm, but they would start at the storage room and work their way forward. The window would only be open for a brief amount of time.
Using the bronze key on the ring he carried, Rodger allowed Francis and himself into the marvelously refreshing storage room. Having access to this room was a part of Rodger’s duties as a finance manager - keeping track of the processed inventory was a matter of grand importance. Rodger was trusted with ensuring that a specific number of barrels were kept in the storage room at all times, in case of any sort of unanticipated accident, sort of like the type he was about to unfold.
“Alright Francis, sit. Stay,” Rodger said to his dog, keeping the pooch at the entrance of the storage room. The idea was to keep Francis at the door, hoping that he would bark if anyone started to come this way unbeknownst to Rodger. Francis was very happy to have his feet in the room that was particularly cool, but sitting on the cold tile floor was too much for his tush and he wanted to stay at his papa’s side anyway. No sooner had Rodger taken but three steps away from the door that Francis was immediately at his side again.
“No, Francis, come,” Rodger quietly commanded, picking Francis up by the sides of his somewhat bulbous belly, and placing him gently back in the doorway. “Stay,” Rodger again commanded, but before he could complete a full step back, Francis already began to follow him. “No, Francis,” Rodger again picked up the dog and turned him to face the hall. Yet again, the determined dog turned 180 degrees to face his papa. Rodger tried this same technique of picking up and turning around his dog twice more before completely giving up on his hope to have his dear companion dog be a guard. If Francis preferred to be at his side, there was no point in wasting time.
With Francis in step with his stride, Rodger proceeded with his plan. There were only a few minutes left before the guards would enter the hall and he would have to hide and likely forsake his plan for tonight. Due to his frequency in this room, Rodger knew exactly where to strike. In the third row of high stacked barrels, Rodger found the desired target: the smokey, malty ales. With very few hops in their production process, these ales were among the best in the world. It was an ancient recipe that the black boots had taken years to reproduce and it was done masterfully. This was not the brew that was intended to be showcased by Sir Hops A Lot in the upcoming competition, for that one was under tight lock and key, but this beer had won the competition eight years ago when it first premiered. Of all the beers that Rodger had ever tried in his life, this was by far his favorite. He hoped that what he had planned would only help to highlight the mastery of this beer further.
Staring at the rack of barrels that were about half the size of those shipped internationally and were used at local pubs, Rodger locked onto the intended barrel. Reaching up onto the racks, Rodger took hold of the intended barrel that was at his eye-level and attempted to pull. Much to his distress the barrel was so heavy that he could not move it! He tried shaking it and twisting it side to side, but the weight of the barrel was seemingly too much.
Rodger’s heart rate doubled as he quickly tried to decide what to do. In his moment of panic, he briefly imagined spending the rest of whatever time he had left locked behind bars for this cockamamie scheme when suddenly his eyes fell upon metal latches on the side of the rack next to the one at which he stood. The latches seemed to lock the barrels in place by sitting inside the head ring. The device seemed so small and so innocuous that Rodger was suddenly horribly embarrassed for missing so simple a detail. Letting his head drop from his lapse in thought, Rodger reached around to the bottom lip of the barrel and with a quick flick of this thumbs, the locks unlatched and the barrel slid out gracefully into his arms. Rodger nearly kicked himself from forgetting something so minor, but with a thirty-five pound barrel of precious merchandise, now was not the time.
Rodger carried the barrel to the back door, which he had forgotten to unlock before and with Francis at his feet this was turning out to be far more of a circus than he had anticipated. “Francis, back up, back up boy,” Rodger quietly commanded. He knew that his time was running short and that the would have no more room for mishaps, the least of which he wanted was a squished dog. With the barrel blocking his view, Rodger swished out his foot to steer Francis back, which did end up pushing the pooch to a safer distance.
Placing the barrel to stand on the ground, Rodger again fiddled with his keys to find the correct mate to the lock. Even though the room was cooled, sweat dripped down Rodger’s forehead from stress and nerves. As he found the proper key and inserted it into the lock, it killed Rodger to not know what time it was, but even stopping to check his pocket-watch would only further push him back.
The door opened into the darkly lit street beside the loading dock of the brewery. Rodger hopped down from the raised peer and dashed across the thin street to a large garbage bin where the waste that could not be recycled was thrown. The bin was full and the flies surrounding it terribly annoying, but directly behind the bin were three of the most important items in this phase. Rodger grabbed the two wheeled trolley that he had borrowed from his neighbor and began to quickly roll it toward the peer. His head spun around as fast as an owl’s, trying to keep a sharp eye out for any unexpected visitors. One of the wheels on his trolley squeaked horribly, only adding to his nerves. Tied the singing vessel was a smashed barrel and a glass growler filled with stale beer.
Francis had not wanted to leave the cool room, so he remained on the ledge where he could feel the refreshing air of the room and keep an eye on his papa, while not having his sensitive nose offended by the waste. With great interest, Francis watched his papa jump back up onto the loading dock with the mess of wood and silver rings in his arms. The man ran into the cold room and arranged the broken barrel on the floor to make it look as if it had fallen from the rack that he had just altered. Returning to the trolley with the pug ever watching, Rodger practically lay flat atop the dock to reach the remaining growler. It would add the final effect for the caper to continue successfully. Passing the pug, Rodger opened the growler and poured the stale pale ale over the broken barrel’s insides to make it look wet, allowing much of the beer to run down the drain that was in the center of the tiled room. The sticky splatter and river that would remain would add a nice touch to this staged accident.
With extreme haste, Rodger grabbed the enormous barrel and carefully rolled it toward his trolley. Francis watched his papa with a confused and intrigued tilt of his head as the man stooped over much like a pooch and delicately rolled the heavy object off the dock and onto the trolley. The awkward position placed a heavy strain on Rodger’s back, but there was no time for pain. The internal time clock within the man knew that it was 7:30pm and that the security guard was probably moments away.
Running back to the door, Rodger pulled shut the exit and locked it with fumbling hands. Springing to the edge of the docks, Rodger hopped down, took hold of the trolley’s handles and began to quickly walk away. The squeaks of the cart however, screamed to him that he was not yet finished.
Leaving the trolley in the middle of the alley, Rodger raced back to the docks and loudly whispered. “Come here, Francis!”
Francis did not want to leave the ledge and he was upset that the door with the pleasant air was closed, but it was dinner time and his stomach was rumbling. With a delighted pug smile, Francis happily waddled over to his papa and the pair of them made a quick exit with the squealing trolley and its precious cargo.
Not two minutes later, the security guard entered the storage room to see a broken barrel and an awfully big, wet mess.
Shaking his head, the security guard said to himself with a sigh, “What a bloody waste.”
Only three stages remained to Rodger’s plot and the next one involved breaking into a completely different brewery.
~*~*~
Tune in next week to see what happens in Rodger's phase three! If you like what you read and want to keep this author writing, please drop by the PayPal button up top and give what you can! Thanks for reading!
Your humble author,
S. Faxon
