The 21 Deaths of Coren Direbrew

Brewfest has passed in Azeroth.

The tents have been folded.  The spilled beer and goat droppings have been cleaned up.

The vendors have gone back to their respective breweries.

Perhaps not everybody is sad to see them go.  Not everybody is into drunken revelry, though my wife might say I am pre-disposed to such activity, have married a beer brewery heiress and all.

But even if you weren’t into the ram riding and drunken brawls with the Dark Iron dwarves, there were still some more tangible goodies to be had by killing Coren Direbrew.  Four of us managed to take him down once on our first outing, and twice on our second, but when we got the full group together we were able to beat him like a pinata in hopes of getting good drops.

So Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights last week we assembled and took him down six times each evening.

While we are only a group of five, I happen to have a level 80 hunter on the server as well, so I was able substitute Tistann, my hunter, in for Vikund once per evening to get us one more bite at the apple.

Some reading up showed that we could avoid the whole “barrel on the head” thing by making sure we had no empty bag slots.  This prevents you from catching the barrel, so to speak.

Fail - A Paladin with empty bag slots

Of course, if you have no empty bag slots, you cannot catch the rare beer that turns you into a Dark Iron dwarf.  At least I think that is where that particular beer came from.  Vikund spent some time in Dark Iron form.

Vikund Transformed into a Dark Iron Dwarf

And what did we end up with after killing Coren 21 times?

• Bubbling Brightbrew Charm – I lost count of these because  they came up so often.  After a while we couldn’t roll on them because we all had one.
• Direbrew’s Shanker – Several of these dropped, but they could at least be sold to a vendor for some decent gold, since nobody really needed it.  Tistann could have used it, but it never dropped when he was in the group.
• Bitter Balebrew Charm – At least four.  Like the Brightbrew Charm, amusing but not so useful.
• Ancient Pickled Egg – Four received, but it was at least useful for Skronk the priest and potentially so for Vikund, should he spec holy.
• Brawler’s Souvenir – Three of these dropped.  Good for Earl, okay for Tistann, otherwise not so useful.
• Mithril Pocketwatch – we got a pair of these, one for Bung and one for Ula if I recall right.
• Swift Brewfest Ram – Just one of these.  We finally saw this drop on the last night we killed Coren.

Vikund won the roll, which not only got him the mount but also an achievement.

Granted, it is a feat of strength achievement, which means that it only counts to settle a tie when bragging about your total achievement points, but it is still cool.

The mount itself looks like your standard epic ram mount from Ironforge.  The main difference is the glowing green eyes and the armor that appears to be made from beer barrels.

The Swift Brewfest Ram

As for the other items, we got some many Brightbrew Charms in a row at one point that we were convinced that we needed to reset the instance to reset the loot table.  Over the long term that did not prove to be true, but one night we took a portal back to Ironforge and reset the instance after each fight.

The only items we did not see were:

• Coren’s Chromium Coaster – Might have been a nice trinket for somebody.
• Direbrew’s Remote – Not that great, but would have saved us some travel time each night, especially during our repeat drop paranoia.
• Tankard O’Terror – That is on heck of a one handed weapon.  It would have been good for Earl, and Vikund wouldn’t have said no to one if offered.
• Great Brewfest Kodo – The really distinctive mount for alliance players.  It did not come our way.

So that was the net goody haul for our group’s Brewfest adventures.

Now we will have to see what the Headless Horseman will have for us come Hallow’s End!  Last year he didn’t drop anything spectacular for us, but maybe we’ll have better luck this year.