I Propose a Little Game

For those who still have a set of DnD dice hanging around (or just use a website dice roller).

I propose that we post a list of base malts, a list of specialty grains, another list of hops varieties and a final list of adjuncts/flavorings.

Someone will roll a d20 or d12 for each list, someone will compile, and then we will need an intrepid volunteer to actually brew this random character.

We'd keep with a DnD theme, label it thusly, give it a character name ("Lucretius Moose Rogerer" is a favorite) and post a film of our volunteer and his starwalt band tasting the brew.

Whattayathink? :fro:

CreamyGoodness said:

For those who still have a set of DnD dice hanging around (or just use a website dice roller).

I propose that we post a list of base malts, a list of specialty grains, another list of hops varieties and a final list of adjuncts/flavorings.

Someone will roll a d20 or d12 for each list, someone will compile, and then we will need an intrepid volunteer to actually brew this random character.

We'd keep with a DnD theme, label it thusly, give it a character name ("Lucretius Moose Rogerer" is a favorite) and post a film of our volunteer and his starwalt band tasting the brew.

Whattayathink? :fro:

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As much as I want to make fun of you for this my inner geek is really excited. I brew one gallon batches once a week so I wouldn't be opposed to doing the brewing. Assuming I can get the ingredients at my lhbs, so nothing really crazy.

I just want to make fun of you........

And then fall asleep on a subway with you.

I miss my dice. I don't know what happened to them over the last 22 years but I wish I could roll them just one more time.

If you can sum up some rules, I'm in.

Just remember for those of you who play "fantasy football". Fantasy football is Dungeons & Dragons for people who make fun of other people for playing Dungeons & Dragons.

20!

Seriously, I like this idea.

Rereading my post I want to clarify something so I don't seem like a dick. I used to play (only a little DnD, but a lot of ModernD20 and Star Wars D20). More making fun in a joking way for coming up with the idea. I'm all in we just have to come up with the ingredients list and roll for it. And then maybe roll a d20 6 times to come up with the og?

I'm loving how this is coming together! No worries, Jolly, I thought what you said was funny. Cheezy, are you in to help put the lists together? I'm green as a baby diaper on mashed peas night when it comes to beer...

that's one nerdy-ass beer...

I'm in, but YOU have to brew it Creepygoodness

These guys did something similar, seems like a lot of fun.

Shucks, and here I thought I had a hell of an original idea...

Seeing as how I'm a guy in his mid thirties who still runs a D&D community site (the Red Dragon Inn), I'm loving this idea, OP.

tmoney645 said:

These guys did something similar, seems like a lot of fun. "Diced-Hopped IPA"

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and i think this points to an important idea, IMO: limits around your randomness. in the video's case, they randomized the late additions. you don't want to randomize the bittering hops lest the dice tell you to add 20 oz of columbus.

in the same way, i wouldn't want the dice to tell me to use 1 pound of 2-row and 15 pounds of C-60. yuck. i'm a former (reformed?) DnDer so i'm just looking out for y'all.

I haven't delved (is that the right verb?) in 4-5 years but I still have my dice. Alfred, my cleric, would heartily approve of this endeavor.

Dammit, now I want to play again. Anyone in my area?

I'm an experienced idiot and an amateur beer brewer, so I think making this game a community enterprise is our best bet. I am unfamiliar with a lot of the grain varieties, so terms like C-60 don't mean as much to me just yet.

CreamyGoodness said:

I am unfamiliar with a lot of the grain varieties, so terms like C-60 don't mean as much to me just yet.

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C-60 is crystal 60, AKA crystal malt with a lovibond (color) rating of 60. generally you want to keep crystals under 20% of your malt bill. my previously stated example would yield a sickly sweet, low-attenuation beer because it contained way too much crystal. you want the majority of your grain bill to be made up of base malts: 2-row, marris otter, pilsen, pale ale, etc.

Anyone else think of this right away?

[ame="http://youtu.be/goeewaFNulo"]http://youtu.be/goeewaFNulo[/ame]

DMartin said:

I haven't delved (is that the right verb?) in 4-5 years but I still have my dice. Alfred, my cleric, would heartily approve of this endeavor.

Dammit, now I want to play again. Anyone in my area?

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I'm miles from you, but you could always come do a play by post game with us at the Inn.

sweetcell said:

and i think this points to an important idea, IMO: limits around your randomness. in the video's case, they randomized the late additions. you don't want to randomize the bittering hops lest the dice tell you to add 20 oz of columbus.

in the same way, i wouldn't want the dice to tell me to use 1 pound of 2-row and 15 pounds of C-60. yuck. i'm a former (reformed?) DnDer so i'm just looking out for y'all.

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See, I think that the way to do this is to utilize tables, much like the old school D&D treasure/monster/encounter tables.

Roll against those tables, but use reason.


Something like this:

Roll d20 to determine base malt (but understand that you will only be rolling for 2 row, pils, maris otter, etc).

Roll for specialty grains. Maybe roll a set # of times, roll again if you hit a certain number, etc.

Roll for bittering hops.

Roll for aroma hops.

Roll for flavor hops.

Etc.


Do some controlled randomness, as opposed to just pure madness.

Sigh. Now, the nerd in me wants to write a web script that generates a recipe for you.

So here's the basics:
Base Malt 1: pale, pils, vienna, maris otter, munich, wheat
Base Malt 2: pale, pils, vienna, maris otter, munich, wheat
% split: if 60, then 60% base 1, 40% base 2

d4 for number of specialty malts
specialty malt options(5% grist for each): c10, c20, c40, c60, c80, c120, special b, aromatic, rye, peat smoked, chocolate, roasted barley, black patent, dark munich, flaked oats, victory, melanoidin, midnight wheat, caravienne, caramunich

d100(or two 10's): number of ibus
Bittering hop: columbus, cascade, centenial, citra, amarillo, ekg, palisade, hallertau, saaz, chinook, pacific jade, mt hood, nelson sauvign, nugget, fuggles, galaxy, anthanum, cluster, galena, motueka

d20 Flavor hop time (do this twice)
flavor hop: (same as above, twice also)

dry hop: yes or no roll
if yes dry hop: same choices

yeast: california, british, irish, hefe, american hefe, burton, dry english, trappist, abbey, belgian

Anyone who wants to tweak that go ahead, just an idea based off of what I know is at the lhbs.

I was going to say "what a dork". Then I realized I wanna play. What a dork!

I have a full set of dice sitting on the kitchen table lol

Curious to see how this turns out.

homebrewdad said:

I'm miles from you, but you could always come do a play by post game with us at the Inn.

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Ahh, Birmingham. Home of the best Thai food and the worst Waffle House I've ever had.

DnD?
No.

Strat-0-Matic maybe.
Extreme brews could be Clint Hurdle, Shane Spenser, or Craig Kimbrel.

I forgot to mention I want my character name to be Sir Osis of "Liver".

I have a whole bag of dice somewhere. I even have at least two, maybe three d30's! I played AD&D all through my time in the Army with a group of friends. I'm in, but I need to find my dice...

Perhaps we could call the style VirginAle?

Or maybe SoloSaturday Stout? I say this without malice, I had some 30 sided die 15 or so years ago which if I recall, the ladies loved.

Just a thought, but if someone rolled up 'n' recipes for 'n' brewing participants, each participant could then brew and mail a bottle w/ the recipe to the other 'n-1' participants. That way, each participant would get to taste all 'n' recipes.

Think how cool it would be getting beer delivered to your mail box.

So just a suggestion, but I was thinking about which ingredients should be assigned which die:

d20: hops
d10: yeast
d8: base malts
d12: specialty malts

Thoughts? I think those die/ingredient combinations allow for the best representation of each category. We could probably even do d30 for hops.

The yeast list is too encompassing. Having hefe and the other odd yeasts in there could ruin your end product. I would suggest a single D4 for to determine american, irish, german or english yeast strains only. At least then you final product doesnt risk being a black IPA fermented at 90 with saison yeast.

I created an Excel 'random beer ingredients' generator this afternoon. I used all the all-grain ingredients my local shop stocks, so its got plenty of malts even if the list is not all-encompassing. You push the macro button and it randomly tells you:

what your beer OG is,
what number and percentage of malts to use,
what your total IBUs should be,
a list hops to use,
and a yeast style.

The hops addition values and times are left for you to sort out to your liking. Its pretty interesting what a random roll will net you.

Here are a few pics of the output. After playing with it for a while it becomes very clear why pro-brewers don't randomly combine ingredients for a brew. Anyone interested in the excel sheet?

*claps hands giggling with glee*

Can we have a keeper of the list and have them roll, and reveal to to each person what they need to brew?

We could swap, post, and detail the outcomes!

nutty_gnome said:

The yeast list is too encompassing. Having hefe and the other odd yeasts in there could ruin your end product. I would suggest a single D4 for to determine american, irish, german or english yeast strains only. At least then you final product doesnt risk being a black IPA fermented at 90 with saison yeast.

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People scared of risk shouldn't play with dice. Sometimes there be dragons. Sometimes there be saison yeast. All times there be bears.

DromJohn said:

People scared of risk shouldn't play with dice. Sometimes there be dragons. Sometimes there be saison yeast. All times there be bears.

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This.

Besides, you can always be a pansy and reroll.

nutty_gnome said:

Anyone interested in the excel sheet?

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Yes please! Great idea!

This thread is relevant to my interests. The resulting brew should be called "Random Encounter" or "Wandering Monster"

MonkHeDo said:

This thread is relevant to my interests. The resulting brew should be called "Random Encounter" or "Wandering Monster"

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This post is killing me.

We all have our imaginary brewery names, mine is Confederate Dragon Brewery (which nods to both my Southern heritage and my geek background). I have artist pals do artwork for me for every brew; the central figure is always a red dragon in a Confederate soldier's uniform.

Wandering Monster/Ranom Encounter would just fit my label scheme ridiculously well!

Sounds like fun, but perhaps it's worthwhile rolling, say, n+5 recipes, and tossing out a few that will be pretty obviously awful? Like something with 1.08 gravity and 5 IBUs? Or something with 98 IBUS and no flavor or dry hops?