One day in Quel’thelas
I met a comely lass
with eyes as green as Lordaeron’s canals!
Her glances and perfumes
attracted would-be grooms
but one by one she found them all banal.
She said, “one must be neat;
a girl is what she eats.”
She disdained all their victual offerings.
But she consented to dine,
with a shaman friend of mine,
when she heard his totem was a Mana Spring!

OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH….

Chorus:
I’m an Elf Lover
(he’s an elf lover)
I fancy the long-eared
(he’s got us all quite worried)
I’m an Elf Lover
(he showers in mana potions)
I’m afraid I can’t be cured
(he grooms with sparkly lotions)

Ohhhh,
Once in Auberdine
(I was trying to go unseen)
when I stumbled on a pair of gorgeous scouts.
It was a perilous close shave,
but fortune my bacon saved–
for it happened that the two were making out!
(well done, ladies!)…

OOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…

[and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, until most of the participants are horizontal and incapable of carrying the tune any longer]

We finished up with Zalazane (see the last issue) more or less just in time to retire to the Brewfest outside of Orgrimmar, so I am pleased to be able to provide you with a full guide to the festivities and to my doings therein, at least as far as I am capable of recalling.

So, beer is considered a dwarven thing, I guess. I’m not sure why, you don’t need a dwarf to tell you that you can stick things in water for a few weeks and then have a party. Tauren have been making beer for centuries. Tauren, however, make beer out of grass. Grass is pretty much all we used to eat, you know, and it holds a certain place in our hearts. Most foreign palates find Tauren brew to be “overly grassy” or “somewhat more lawn-like” than they prefer. Also, it’s hallucinogenic. Also we’re not as comical-looking as dwarves.

So the Orgrimmar brewfest has this peculiar dwarven thing about it. It’s full of orcs and trolls and other such fine people, but the goblins are all wearing dwarf masks, they play dwarven oompah music originally written for keeping time while DIGGING HOLES IN PERFECTLY GOOD LANDSCAPES, and … what? No, I just got distracted. Where was I? Oh, right —

— there, finished my mug. The other thing is, every so often a huge mess of dwarves pop out of the ground, shouting some dwarven nonsense, and we all beat them senseless. Ancestors be praised, this is a celebration I can get behind. The puzzling thing ish that apparently they… they do the same thing over in the Alliance.

I thought they liked dwarves? For that matter. How did the dwarves get here? (see figure 1). Where do they go? If any of you are reading this, what the hell?

Uhh, right so brewfest. The idea is bashically to eat as many different sausages as you can without stopping for breath, and then plug the top of that mess with a pretzel and drown it all in beer. The pretzel, you shee, expands when the beer hits it, closing off any, uh, any backflow.

Then you win a prize! It’s not even really fair that they let us compete because we’re so large, but we make up for it by being very nice, right guys?

Yeah, they say I’m right.

Oh, shit, yeah – we’re trying to figure out what’s up with the shewers in Lordaeron… I mean… the city is unnerground, right? But the sewer pipes go up. And waste… washte is like – flowing along the pipes. Upwards. Into the woods. What the fuck? (see figure 2).

Right, sho. If you get bored with eating too much and drinking too much, or you run out of money with which to do either of those things, there are varioush tasks to which you can be put if you know the right people. Which I do. The people. Know them. Not the tasks, so much.

You can, for example, ride around Orgimmar barking for your favourite brewery. Because everyone loves a shouting advertisement who can’t steer. Fortunately the rams are pretty well trained and will probably get you home even after you pass out and your blandishments to consume have degenerated into bubbling about how you were the strongest princess at the Icecrown ball.

My favourite brewersh happen to be Drohn’s, at least among those that showcase their wares at Brewfesht. Orcs, you know – very shtable and hard-working, in their own way, except for the outburshts of murderous temper. Anyway, they manage to make beersh that are both flavourful (I’m a hoppy sort of, uh, of fellow) and easy-drinking. Call me a shisshy – many have, and there is shome truth to it – but I don’t like beer so thick it takes weeks to get down your throat.

The other thing I love about them is the names; all their beers have these clever namesh that are… travel themed, which as you can imagine I appreciate. Step Out the Door, The Road Less Travelled, Distant Path…

“…Promise of the ‘Pandaren’. What the heck?”

“It’s a mythical creature,” said Kiyero Drohn to me; I was hanging out at their booth, being an entertaining nuisance and examining the collection.

“Never heard of it – what does it promise?”

“Well, legend says that they live in a place west of Kalimdor across the sea.”

“So, the Eastern Kingdoms then?”

“No, inbetween here and there. And if you see one, you’re gradually overcome with this… uncomfortable feeling.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes, it’s rumoured to be exactly like the feeling of looking at clumsy attempts to wring humour from ethnic stereotypes, but you can’t actually remember which ones. Like a parody for a play where you’ve never seen the original. It’s a painful stereotype of something that doesn’t exist.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah, my cousin claims he saw one once. He was pretty badly spooked. I think he was considering taking up pro-quilboar activism for a little while before he came to his senses.”

So there you have it, folks. The beer actually is quite tashty; it’s like – you know what if like, steel could taste good? I dunno, like metally – but not awful, like eating actual metal. Great, like licking a really delicious magic shword. In wintertime.

“Excuse me – what are you doing?” Tirion Fordring would shay to you. And you’ve have your tongue shtuck to his sword, and you’d be all “Uh, zzuthing?” Then your guild will all have to shtop and pull you free before you can fight Arthas and they will not be happy with you. So just drink Drohn’sh.

Lastly, if you’re unable to make it to Orgrimmar, feel free to stop in at the peripheral beer gardensh outside Thunder Bluff, Undercity, and, uh… the other one. Silvermoon, that’s it! Silvermoon. Can’t slip one past me.

Thunder Bluff’s beer garden has nice shady elevators to hang out under and admire (they… they go up and down!) In Undercity, bits of the beermaidens are always falling off into the mugs, sho you get a… kind of shurprise… a shurprise flavour with each one. And Shilvermoon has… um… it has… the plumpest…. mosht attractive… Elekks.

Next: Last Call at the Chop House »