I had wondered, seeing the list of brewing equipment and how dauntingly expensive it seems, how much worse my prospects would get when I saw the list of materials, but I never even got that far. The equipment alone is more than enough to put the idea to rest.
I started with the simpler things, the things more likely, I thought, to be in widespread use and thus available, perhaps even already-used ones. Barrels, for instance: you can't hardly walk into a building in Bree and not see barrels standing around everywhere. But so full of plenty are the Soft-Landers that none can even imagine someone wanting to repurpose an old used barrel, or to secure it with anything but copper and silver. I could, perhaps, go without pipe-weed a month and purchase a couple of barrels, and then what? If it's that much of a strain to get those, what then for buckets with spigots, and whatever an air-locker is, and cheese cloth (I wonder if weavers make that?). All for tidy piles of silver, and nothing else. No one even seems to understand even the question of obtaining things any other way. Nor does anyone understand the idea that your work is for your tribe, not for yourself. Just get work to earn the coin to buy the barrels, they're all thinking; but when, then, does one work to earn the coin to buy the food your tribe needs to live?
So in the end, Anlaf has nothing to fear from me. It's a pity; the enterprise promised to be a pleasant way to pass the time while I wait to meet this farmer I've been referred to. I suppose I will have to settle for paying to send her a letter, as everyone keeps suggesting. Funny how, in Bree, even talking to another person costs coin.
