The national beverage of Egypt. Beer is brewed in Beer Kettles using various combinations of malt and honey, stored in small barrels, and served at Ceremonial Tasting Tables.
From Tale 2: Aside from being drunk to increase Beer Tasting skill, beer may be made into ambrosia for festivals, or distilled into spirits using an Alembic.
Individual beers can vary across many characteristics, depending on the ingredients and yeasts? used in their brewing:
Beer is stored in small barrels. A barrel of beer is very heavy, with weight 100 and bulk 1. There is no way to empty a full barrel of beer other than by using it (by unkegging it at a tasting table, or by distilling it or making it into ambrosia). Beer is a complex item.
Spoilage: Unlike wine, beer will spoil over time, rendering it unfit for drinking. (Beer will only begin to go bad once it has been kegged; until then, you can leave it in the kettle indefinitely.) The more potent a beer, the longer it will last in the keg. A Very Potent beer will last over a week, a Potent beer seems to last one Teppy day, while a non-potent beer lasts only one Teppy hour. You will not be told whether a beer has gone bad until you attempt to drink it. Beer will also spoil on the tasting table if left out long enough. Although spoiled beer may not be drunk, it may still be used to make ambrosia or distilled spirits.
Beer may be drunk at a ceremonial tasting table to gain Beer Tasting skill. A single keg of beer provides 21 drinks. The algorithm for how BT increases is not well understood; but as with wine, drinking a variety of beers is the best way to quickly improve skill. It is also possible to gain multiple BT points from a single beer -- in Telling 1, some people reported gaining as many as five points from multiple glasses of a single beer. (Three points is the most that have reached my ears in the current Telling.)
Beer Tasting skill, like Gastronomy, ranges from 0 to (thought to be) 256.
At BT of 7 and 49, Perception is permanently increased by 1.
Two festivals require ambrosia made with beer: the Festival of Osiris and the Festival of Hathor. Ambrosia is prepared at a kitchen using a barrel of beer and either 1 oil (for Osiris) or 1 cobra blood (for Hathor).
The type of beer required by a particular festival will vary; e.g. Very Potent Barley, or Spicy Black Nutmeg. When a flavor is specified, the beer must contain a "hint of" that flavor or better. When a potency is specified, the beer must be of that potency exactly: you cannot use a Very Potent beer if the requirement is for Potent.
Extra flavors and properties in a beer are okay. For instance, a beer that is "Potent Sweet Spicy Brown, Hint of Barley and Nutmeg" will suffice to make ambrosia that needs to be Potent Sweet Nutmeg, or Spicy Brown Barley, etc.
Beer ambrosia does not spoil.