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June's Brew of the Month: Blackrock Lager
It's the beginning of a new month, which means a new brew! This time around it's the Blackrock Lager! This is a hot hot hot beverage to kick off the summer season. Drinking the Lager sometimes procs something that sounds like it should be a Mage talent: Internal Combustion. While you have this buff (which lasts 5 minutes), your face gives off an eerie red glow like you're seeping fire out of every orifice. Except that one. And that one. Okay, you people are gross. Just the ones above the neck. After 5 minutes (or when you click off the buff), you get what you see in the image above. You belch a great load of fire! And that's it. Pretty straightforward. I always try to find little factoids about the various brews these are based on, but a lager is common enough that I don't think it's necessary or interesting to anybody but beer buffs. Instead, I'm going to point out how awesome some of the Blackrock/Dark Iron themed brews are. This one makes you belch fire, but there's also the Dark Iron Ale that you can use to get a pet from the Darkmoon Faire, and the Sulfuron Slammer which creative individuals use to break crowd control effects cast upon them in PvP. The best of the lot is the Dire Brew, which turns you into a Dark Iron Dwarf for an hour. Awesome? Yes, I think so. You can get all of them in Blackrock Depths, so go celebrate in the Grim Guzzler sometime this week!
Planning for the Brewmaster title in advance
A lot of people are understandably upset that the Brewfest mounts are now boss drops instead of buyable items. I've heard from no small number of folks who saved their Brewfest tickets from last year's event in order to purchase the mount with less hassle this year, only to discover that -- oops -- that wasn't in the cards. One particularly irate guildie logged off to go enjoy a mini-Brewfest of her own courtesy of the fridge after discovering that the ingame version wasn't going to cough up a ram.The new boss, Coren Direbrew, is pretty cool and I'm happy to see older content being made relevant again (especially when it's an instance as cool as BRD), but as far as I can tell from the forums and various data sites, the drop rate on the mounts is...less than spectacular. I'm seeing estimates that range from as little as 1% to as much as 15%. Blue poster Kisirani pops up to say it's "much, much easier" to get a Brewfest mount drop than it was to get the Sinister Squashling off the Headless Horseman. Wowhead lists the Squashling as a 2% drop, so maybe the 15% figure for the Brewfest mounts is more accurate.The mount might be a crapshoot, but you can cover the other bases on an upcoming Achievement and title by planning ahead:
Coren Direbrew now drops cross-faction Brewfest mounts, teleportation device
Brewfest is underway today, and with it comes more news of the new boss, Coren Direbrew. You may remember the hubbub surrounding the decision on Brewfest mounts: A Brewfest Kodo would be implemented, but rather than allowing Alliance a chance at it, it would be Horde only, with the Rams becoming Alliance only. Now that Brewfest is live, that decision has been reversed, at least partially. Now, neither mount can be purchased with Brewfest tickets. However, instead, both drop from Coren Direbrew down in the Grim Guzzler. That means that the Alliance and the Horde can both go after the Ram and the Kodo, but only as a rare drop.
Strange things are afoot at the Grim Guzzler
A lot of us pre-Burning Crusade players hold a warm place in our hearts for the Grim Guzzler, the bar in the middle of Blackrock Depths. It's a hangout for desperadoes and shady figures run by a leper gnome with a demonic bar wench and a metallic bouncer. Most of the patrons would usually kill you as soon as look at you, but as long as they're drunk and you don't bother them too much, they'll generally leave you alone. Of course, sometimes it's worth bothering them, since a few of the patrons and staff drop some pretty cool loot. Despite this charming atmosphere, the Grim Guzzler is in the middle of a sprawling dungeon of hostile Dark Iron Dwarves, so ever since the Burning Crusade, people don't seem to go down there too often. That said, you might want to check it out in the next few days. There's a few new faces down at the bar since patch 2.4.3 went live, including an Arena gear vendor named Griz Gutshank, a Dark Iron Brewer who can't hold his brew, and a couple of goblin roadies setting up for a Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain concert. Check out the gallery for a complete illustrated guide to the new faces and surprises at the Grim Guzzler, and maybe I'll see you there tonight for the Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain concert. Oh, and try the Sulfuron Slammer -- It's Plugger's newest specialty! %Gallery-27816%
