A very good year!

For my birthday this year, my long suffering yet beer-friendly wife brought me a beer that was brewed and bottled the same year I was! Or something. Anyway, for those who aren’t aware of such beer-nerdy things, Thomas Hardy’s ale is something of an icon in the world of beer. Originally brewed due to the refurbishment of a pub and to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of the eponymous author, this is a strong barley-wine style beer of extremely high collectible value.

More akin to a fine brandy than a beer, and reputed to age up to 25 years, this 34 year old example was always going to be interesting.

I opted to share it with some very close beer-loving friends; Phil, Jamie, and Barry (and, of course, my wife Alexandra). We had warmed up on Barry’s home brewed Irish Red ale, and his Oatmeal stout. We decided then to begin with a Thomas Hardy’s ale from 2005, followed by 2004, then 2003, and finally the 1975 from the original brewers, Eldridge Pope.

The 2005 was sharp, and somewhat candied, with a slightly brandy-like bite to it. The 2004 was smooth, mellow, and a slow sipping joy. The 2003 was most people’s favourite, with so much richness – it reminded me of a brandy-soaked christmas cake. But then came time for the main event. The tiny little 180ml nip bottle, the contents of which had been so constrained since 1975. I have to admit, I did not have high hopes.

It poured a beautiful mahogany brown, shot through with ruby red highlights against the stormy light from outside the windows. The aroma was of raisins, fine cigar smoke, and wood – similar to an old chest long misplaced in an attic somewhere. All that was missing was a hint of mothballs, and the mind conjured that up unbidden anyway!

The first sip was disappointing. The autolysis I had expected to dominate was either not present, or had mutated far beyond the usual marmite-style flavour as to be unrecognisable as such. Musty flavours permeated, but the rich, raisiny, port-like quality of the newer batches was there yet, hidden behind the dust of ages. Phil suggested that some swirling had opened his up, and that it may benefit from breathing for a tad. I left mine for an hour or so, until the others had finished and left, and came back to it.

As I sup the last bit now, it really has opened up. Age has not damaged this beer as much as I’d have expected, though I’d doubt it would benefit from any further aging. A sweetness remains, amazingly, gentle, and fruity, against the nutty, woody character which dominates. Notes of cherries are present, as well as dried figs. The finish is ever so slightly sharp and bitter, but with a gentle tannic dustyness.

Wow, what an experience. Thirty four year old beer. I feel privileged to have tasted it, and humbled before the craftsmanship of the brewer who made it.

What a day!

There are some more photos online here.

Being heavily associated with SOBA, things I wish to write often get linked to SOBA’s views. Let me assure you that anything I say here is 100% my own opinion. It might not reflect that of SOBA. At times it might flat out contradict SOBA. That’s what opinions are like. Mine will be hanging out here for any and all to see.

If you’re a frequent visitor to the Brewaucracy Brewery Tap (Saxbys Bar), you might also notice that on the right hand side of the page is a handy little sidebar telling you what’s on tap, and what’s coming soon. It even has it’s own RSS feed! This could be used to plan your visits! Remember, I can’t charge you for it, and it needs to be consumed, so when you drink my beer, you’re doing me a favour.

I might also talk a bit about my partners in Brewaucracy (which at the moment is just a concept, and a blog name), Phil Murray and Jamie Curtis. What exactly is it? When will it exist? What shall become of our bubbly amber plans? Who knows. Stay tuned…

I’ve been ripping all the old demo recordings my old band, Still, made in response to a couple of questions about them from people.

Still were:
Myself (guitar, vocals)
Paul Wansbone (guitar, bass, vocals)
Andrew Parsons (keys, bass)
Mel Parsons (was Brown) (drums)

and for a while
Steve Parkinson (guitar, bass, vocals)

Songs were written by Myself, Paul, and Steve, and arranged by the band.

Most of our stuff can be found here. It’s pretty raw, and yes, I can’t sing. I was most proud of My Place, which I wrote, and I Have Fallen, written by Paul.

Read on for the song notes, so I can apologise for things like Frown, which was never right, but could have been so much better. It makes me cringe just listening to it, so sorry… Zero-G is cool though…

I’ll put up some live stuff, when I get around to getting it digitised. Hopefully I can find some recordings of Steve’s songs as well…

Ok, notes on songs, one by one. I can only really comment on my songs from a writing perspective, but will have a crack at Paul’s from a playing perspective. He can correct me!

Reach For The Sky
This was meant to be a commentary on how we all get a bit desensitised to the stuff we see on TV, and some people use religion as a crutch to avoid the feelings of guilt that come from this disassociation. It also implies that a lot of it could be just an overreaction… The lyrics were pretty sophomoric, and I’m not sure I ever really got better.

This Love
The only “group composition” Still ever did. The chord progression was something Paul doodled on one of his first jams with Me, Andrew, and Mel. The lyrics were jotted down on the spot by me, and were never changed despite the fact that they are AWFUL! I figured all “epic songs” have crappy lyrics. Free Bird anyone? The piece as a whole was fleshed out by the band, and was our standard set closer – the last piece Still ever played. It got re arranged more times than George W. Bush declared someone a terrorist.

I Have Fallen
A Paul song. No idea what it’s about – all very psychedelic! I used to love playing lead guitar on this one live. One of my favourite Still songs, but the rest of the band (including Paul) never seemed to share my enthusiasm. When Paul left to go to the UK, Steve used to curse his name, as he had to sing it!

Walk Away
A song for moonlight walks, and making up. Bad lyrics. Again. Used to segue quite happily into The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and we enticed Steve into the band by initially getting him to play flute over this!

Bleed
Angry music. ROAR! This one is about the frustration of all the things you just can’t fix. It had a tendency to get very Nine Inch Nails live.

Diary
A silly song. I was taken with the intro, which was a doodle, and was naive enough to think it was strong enough to make a good song out of. Return of the bride of the son of shitty lyrics. A body in the snow? What was I thinking??

What Happened Here
Dark Paul-ness. I liked this song because it was the only song I got to play bass on. A nice relaxing song for me, despite the dark subject matter.

First Year Love
I think this is Paul’s “Frown” – a song that is fairly simple, and with lots of potential, but that was just never meant to be a Still song. We massacred it. The scary thing is, this version is possibly the best one. Though there were some funny live versions. The funniest was where no one could remember which key it was in. I blame the Scotch!

Weather God
OK, this is just pure happiness. It was written about someone I never see any more, and whom I would have loved to have been able to make the sun come out for. Life is harder than music.

My Place
Goth guy meets goth girl. They go home together, play with sharp objects, fantasise about death…typical happy song really. No one dies. I wish we’d recorded the version we did later on with the more traditional guitar solo, instead of the odd little finger picked one I did here. I wanted it to sound disorienting against the 5/4 beat, but I don’t think it worked. Fun to play live, and a song I’m truly proud of.

For Fiona
A Paul song to his now wife. He says “it did its job, she married me didn’t she?” A fun song to play live. I got to use my ebow, which otherwise used to only get pulled out for particularly 70s versions of This Love.

Automatic
Another song I’m quite proud of, though my original concept never really worked out. The lyrics work, but the third verse got dropped on this recording in favour of this odd hybrid of verses two and three…we were recording it, and I had a complete mind blank on the lyrics, but the take was as good as it was going to get otherwise, and Andrew and Mel said it was ok, so we left it. I LOVE Andrew’s piano solo on this song. It’s very King Crimson! It was kinda hard to get him to cut loose like that live – he’s quite shy! And miracle of miracles – I was happy with the lyrics.

Under Your Feet
Another GREAT Paul song. I might have had quantity, but he had quality. This song was so much fun to play guitar on.

Zero-G
An instrumental piece written solely as an introduction for Frown, such was my faith in Frown being that good. It wasn’t. It sucked. But I am happy with this little instrumental. i still find myself doodling with it on accoustic now and then. The keyboard isn’t a keyboard at all, but a Juno synth emulator on a PC. This makes it the only Still “song” that’s entirely my own work.

Frown
Another song inspired by a friend, though not really about her as such. More about self-destructive behaviour in general. A little dose of “it’ll be alright”, mixed with some “hey, I do give a shit.”, and a little bit of “thank you for understanding” thrown in there too. I had such high hopes for this song, but it just sounds terrible. Mel’s drumming is about the only thing I like, though even that doesn’t really sound right in this version. Paul and I used to have some nice little overlapping guitar parts live, but they’re not really here either. Ah well.

Long Story Short
I’ve just noticed that the original (fast/loud) version of this is nowhere to be found, and only the accoustic version remains. Probably for the best, it’s a far better song this way. This is kindof part one of the song that became Frown. Similar theme, just earlier in the piece. We all tend to think we’re immortal at times. Everything dies.

A footnote on the recordings
Stillicious was recorded at a friend of Andrew’s (John Rothery) in Otorohanga. We had never been in a studio before, and it was a learning experience. The quality of the recordings is very rough, but it is what it is.

Shortland Street was recorded at the York Street “B” studio on Shortland Street in Auckland. It was part of the infamous “Splash Promotions” sessions that ended up documented on a compilation CD of emerging NZ artists, including Tadpole, Lizard, and some other very cool bands. It was interesting working with a serious producer, who I won’t name due to the circumstances we acquired the DAT tapes under…

Bang (!) was recorded with Daniel Howard at Clicksound – well, Clicksound Mobile, on location at the now Defunct JBC bar in Hamilton. We rushed it, and it shows. But we were very very poor, so didn’t have a lot of options. You’ll note that certain tracks from Shortland Street made their way onto this collection. It was a bit hush hush at the time. I played a borrowed guitar (thanks Daren!) on this (except for overdubs on For Fiona) as my gear was stolen around this time. I had my new gear by the time we did the For Fiona overdubs and mixdown to DAT.