ADD- Inject the Poison (419 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by GoneFiguring (View user info) at 2006-07-30 01:45:27 EDT
Inject the poison.
Barley waving in the breeze, anchored in sunny fields that roll on for miles. Golden grains, nature's bounty organized and cultivated by the hand of man. Take the broad view and see the power and majesty of growing. Look closer and you will find that there is purpose to man's organization of nature here in this field.
Yeast is found on the barley if the most detailed view is taken. Living on the sugars produced by the grain and the rainfall, it is a symbiote's idea of a perfect symbiote. As with all symbiotic relationships, benefits are traded. In this case, the trade is simple: food for disease protection. But there is an additional benefit beyond that effected in barley and yeast.
Water leaps from rock, exposed to the air for maybe the first time in a hundred years, maybe the first time ever. Flowing downhill in a stream, some is diverted by a wooden trough set into the hillside. This water flows through stone chutes older than any living memory into pots made of copper, which were formed by men whose marks are hammered into the metal and who are otherwise long forgotten. The water does not know it's destiny but after all these years, the trough, the chutes, the pots; they know.
Hops climb tall on the trellises, stretching their tendrils toward the sun. Tamed by man to reach for the sky, they bear more and larger fruit. The bitter, fragrant bulbs are gathered, mixed, crushed, and blended. A mixture worthy of the finest perfume or the most intricate symphonic passage is concocted, and as with a great musical solo, it awaits the proper time for it's introduction.
Water and barley are first introduced. A fire is lit and a dance begins wherein the essences of the two become one. Separate yet joined, infused and never to be separated, each less without the other now that the other has been revealed to the one.
As if they were a series of lightning strikes, the delicacy and power of hops are added to the thunderstorm of roiling grain and water. As the fire expends its energies, the barley and the hops shed their husks and immerse their essences into the water. The fire burning low, the three acquaint one to the others as the useless bodies of the hops' and barley's previous existence are removed by man. But the three are in truth four.
Some of the yeast has won through the fire. It is still capable of magic. Calling upon Time, it begins a transformation of the three friends into one. Soon once again there is motion in the pots but this time it is not the fire causing the roiling. The yeast, the small, hardy, magic seeds of change, they cause this motion. And when time has had its fill and the motion stops, a wonder has occurred. Barley, Hops, Water, and Yeast have become Beer. Barley forms the load, Water carries it, Hops stabilizes it, and Yeast makes it worth carrying. Symbiosis amongst the Four Friends.
As done since centuries gone, the Beer is drawn from the pots and placed in glass bottles for man's consumption. For the first time, however, there's a difference. Some of the bottles and kegs are to be shipped to a faraway land, across the sea. The leaders of this land do not know about the wooden trough, the stone chutes, the copper pots. Once, long ago, they knew of the Four Friends, but that have long forgotten.
Now, they do not understand that the Four are without need of a fifth partner, so they decree that any Beer brought to this land must be infused with another ingredient. Like an inclusion of coal in a diamond, the intruder degrades and cheapens the Beer. The whole is lessened, it fades, it is diminished. Those who dwell in this faraway land do not know what has befallen their Beer before they taste it. But the wood knows, the stone knows, the copper knows, the glass knows.
O, how I wish we could get real beer in America.
User Reviews
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-08-01 04:31:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's been over 40 days since we had our fight *sigh* Good times....good times.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-07-31 06:55:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Best yet minus the car advert.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-07-31 04:57:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2006-07-31 00:24:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You can get good beer in america.
I am a fan of beer.
I am also a fan of brutality.
Submitted by foodman (user info) at 2006-07-30 06:41:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It was long and I didn't feel like reading the whole thing, but what I did read was too good to not +2.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-07-30 02:50:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Guinness Brewery. Dublin, Ireland.