1. Journals

How Black Alice’s Brew got it's name

As told by BlackJack McCaffety, owner and proprietor of the tavern Black Alice's Brew in Haven Towne, to the Adventuring Party known as the Lords of Doom. As it was told to him by his father and his father before him.  

In those days Black Alice was newly arrived in Haven Towne, from far off Valoria. While Haven Towne was much smaller back then it was still a great city and she didn’t really know her way around yet. Black Alice was generally not a fan of cities (unlike her sisters) but she had business that brought her here and thought she might as well see the sights.

One day as she was wandering NorthPort getting the lay of the land and taking in the sight of all the fine ships and busy docks she passed a big old pub right on the water and she and decided she fancied a beer.

She went in, sat down at the bar. The place was crowded and the barkeep was busy chumming with his regulars and didn’t have much time for a poor looking old lady that dressed like a foreigner so he let her sit there for a good while and when he finally did get around to asking her what she wanted, he was short with her.

“Waddah have then?” He barked. 

“A pint of yer best dark, dark as the night sky,  if ye have it. Thick as me mama’s bread pudding”

Now in Haven Towne they mostly drink lighter brew. Pilsners, lagers and such, often pretty poor stuff by Valorian standards. The bartender didn’t have anything darker than noontime. He also didn’t have any time to explain any of this to some old foreign woman so he just poured her a pint of cheap lager and went back to his friends.

Black Alice sniffed the beer. She poked it with a fork. She looked up at the barkeep busily ignoring her and, never being one to make a scene she quietly got up and left

But she still had a hankering for a brew. As she walked down Port Street to where it met Governors Way, the establishments got more upscale. She saw a nicer one and figured maybe it had a better selection so she went in.

This place didn’t have a bar, just little round tables so she sat down at one. The waiter gave her a dirty look and asked her to move to a different table, in the corner, where no prospective patrons could see the poor, shabbily dressed old women. This place had an image to cultivate you see, and it wadn’t her. That waiter let her sit there for a good while until he came to take her order 

“A pint of yer best dark, dark as the night sky with narry a star in it, if ye have it. Thick as me mama’s bread pudding” said Black Alice

“This is a wine bar not a pub” said the waiter. “We only carry wine. We have 76 different vintages. They are all expensive”

“I be wanting a beer” said Black Alice 

“We don’t have any beer, just wine” said the waiter. “Fine wine. Expensive wine” he said looking meaningfully at her shabby clothes.  Which was a lie. They damn well had beer he just wanted to get rid of her.

Never one to make a scene she just answered softly “Very well then I’ll be on my way” and she got up and left quietly.

Now at this point she was feeling a little despondent. A little old woman, far from home, alone, in a foreign land that was treating her shabbily. As she walked back down Port Street listlessly, she noticed another little pub on the corner, nothing too special about it, not big and fancy or on the waterfront just a neighborhood pub and she figured to give it one more try. She likes her brew, Black Alice.

She went in and sat down on an old, wornout bar stool. The barkeep noticed her and left off talking to his regulars and came right on over

“A good day to you mother” he said cheerily. “And what will ye be having”

“A pint of yer best dark, dark as the night sky with narry a star in it, if ye have it. Thick as me mama’s bread pudding” said Black Alice. “Or whatever ye have that be closest to that, I have a powerful thirst”

“Ah ye must be from Valoria I reckon” said the barkeep. “Travelled there once in my youth back when I was a sailor. They like a dark brew there. “

“Aye” said Black Alice, brightening a bit. “Just newly arrived in these isles”. 

“I have just the thing for ye” he said and went over and drew her a pint of The Dark. See this barkeep was brewer himself (unlike most who just bought their droughts wholesale) and he made many different beers, including some he had sampled in foreign lands 

And he had one that was dark as the night sky with narry a star, and thick as bread pudding. 

Black Alice looked at the pint and sniffed it. She stuck her fork in it. The fork stood tall and took nearly five seconds to gradually fall to the side of the mug. Black Alice looked approvingly at the beer and then she drank it off on a single swallow the whole pint.

“Ye be thirsty!”” said the barkeep merrily.

“That’s a good brew” said Black Alice

“Ye be having another I reckon?” Laughed the barkeep.

“Aye” then a might suspiciously “how much are these then”

“Well generally they are a halfpenny” said the barkeep (which was a very generous price in those times) but given ye are new here the first one is on the house”

Over the next hour or so Black Alice drank off six more pints of that brew. Each one in a single long swallow. She and the Barkeep chattering away about Valoria, the Isles, brewing (Black Alice was a renowned brewer herself back in the day) and the barkeep giving her all sorts of good advice about Haven Town. 

And finally after the seventh pint the barkeep looking a might worried (that being enough to lay a grown man flat out on the floor) said “mother I reckon you might want to pace yourself a bit here”

Black Alice’s, with narry a slur in her voice, answered “That is a very good brew, one of the best I’ve had in these long years. But there is sense in what you say”

Then she stood up and somehow she got taller and a bit o’her power that she had kept carefully hid, up until now, shown through. 

“Barkeep you are a good man and brew a good beer. Now my name is Black Alice, ye may have heard o’ me?”

The inn got quiet. Even in The Isles they knew the name Black Alice. “Aye I heard o you” replied the barkeep softly. 

“You are the first man that done shown me kindness on this Isle which is a good thing, as I was getting a might down and thinking some dark thoughts that might a been bad for this land. But now I reckon I think differently. And you brew a good beer. 

The barkeep kept silent, though his face paled a bit when he heard “might have been bad for this land”.

“ You keep that beer on tap for me, so that I might have a pint or two from time to time, and in return my blessing will lie over you, and your descendants”

“Certainly mother” said the barkeep. “We’d do that without the blessing”

“Thank ye, I know ye would but ye get the blessing anyway” said Black Alice a bit of humor creeping into her tone. And she paid her tab and left 

That night, mysteriously, precisely at midnight both the first two taverns Black Alice had visited burned down to the ground in a fire. Just those two buildings, mysteriously the fires didn’t harm any of the neighboring ones. And the waiter at the wine bar disappeared never to be seen again. However people did report seeing an especially large and bold rat run out of his bedroom when the door was opened to search for him.

And ever since that day over two hundred years ago my greatgrandfather, my grandfather, father and I have always been careful to brew the Dark and keep it ever ready. In case Black Alice returns and asks for it. Which she does occasionally, though not in the last century or so. And because you never know, we treat every patron as if that person might be her. And the fortune of our family, through war and plague, and all the history that has passed since,  has ever been good. 

And that is why we call this place “Black Alice’s Brew”