It’s not every day that you get the chance to try a beer that’s older than you are.

Last Saturday night I opened a bottle that was just that; I opened a beer that was older than me, so that’s over twenty five, give or take the odd ten years. In fact it was a lot older than me, more than twice my age.

It was brewed in 1929 in fact, so that’s 83 years old.

A mate of mine dabbles in buying and selling antiques and I got a call from him a while back…

“You like beer don’t you Gav?”
“Well, yes” I laughed.
“How long does beer last?” came the reply.
“Depends what it is” I say in return, “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve got a couple of bottles you might be interested in.”
“Go on.”
“It’s a bit old”
“How old?”
“1902 and 1929.”

I was silent for a second or two after that.

The beers my mate had come by were Bass King’s Ale (1902) and Bass Prince of Wales Brew (1929). I took a quick look at the bottles and, as he only wanted £30 for the pair, I snapped them up, for novelty reasons if nothing else.

A King and a Prince

Then along comes OpenIt! and I think, what about those Bass beers I’ve got, shall I open one of those? I council a few folks on twitter and by the end of the day I’ve decided I’m taking along the bottle of Prince of Wales Brew to OpenIt! at Mr Foley’s in Leeds. There’s plenty of other curious folks keen to try it too, most of them more beer geekish than I am.

And shortly after arriving the bottle is on to the table with a corkscrew, the remainder of the wax seal is removed and I’m plunging the corkscrew in. With a small lever part of the cork comes away – it’s a bit dried out as you’d expect –  and I need a different corkscrew to get a little more of the cork out and drill a little hole as its pretty stuck in there.

The empty glasses are thrust my way and everyone is keen to try. We all give it a sniff and look at each other slightly nervously. The aroma a little on the sour side but I’m getting a whiff of raisins and we wonder if the beer will taste as sour as it smells.

"Ich Dein" Bass 1929 Prince of Wales Ale

How many men does it take to open a beer?

The slow pour, and it's dripping tasty too!

Here goes!

I take a sip.

How does it taste?

Well it tastes alright considering its age. A nice fruity character. The next offering to my tongue is a good size and I’m getting an idea of the flavour now. I’m very pleasantly surprised, it’s a bit like like an amontillado sherry. It’s stunning that a beer that’s survived for 83 years untouched has this amount of flavour left in it. It’s not nasty at all and most of us are in agreement about this.

Of course I’ve no idea how it was supposed to taste (I’ve no idea what beer tasted like back in 1929 for that matter). Prince of Wales Brew was the second Bass beer with a royal connection after Bass King’s Ale was produced in 1902 for the coronation of Edward VII. I’m lead to believe that for Prince of Wales Brew the mash was started by Prince Edward, who later become Edward VIII of course, and sold for around £5 a bottle, a fair bit of wedge back in the day!

So was it worth opening? I took the remainder of the bottle home and then to the local the following day. There was a pretty mixed response from folks who where a little less beer geekish, some of disgust and some of surprise and intrigue. I’m with the latter crowd hence my curiosity to open it.

It’s just amazing to think that you’ve actually been drinking history. A beer that, given its royal connection and price, must have been been painstakingly crafted by Bass master brewers to brew a beer befitting a Prince. I feel very privileged to have been able to try and share it with friends. A great beer experience. I just wish, like most beers really, I could open it and enjoy the experience again.

The Prince of Wales feathers, which are also embossed on the bottle, bare the words ‘Ich Dien’, which means ‘I Serve’. This beer ‘Ich Dien’ with pleasure Your Royal Highness!

Victory! Eventually the cork is breached!

Pouring a bottle of beer older than me

Big thanks to Rick Furzer for organising the Open It session at Mr Foleys, and to Ghost Drinker for the lovely pics of the crew struggling to open the very old bottle of beer!

Hooky takes pride of place above the stairs at Bart 'At, Ilkley

I’ll be going back to Bar t’at, Ilkley’s ‘North Bar’, because the first time around I wasn’t bowled over. We didn’t need to comment to the forgetful bartender, he only had to see the look on my Dad’s face.

Suffice to say my pint of Thornbridge Hopton was just the ticket and our longer than expected wait for my mums coffee gave us the chance to admire a host of brewery related posters and paraphernalia. Our beloved Hooky took pride of place over the stairs whilst Sheps, Brakspear, Harvey’s and Bass adorned the walls around our table.

There was even some Belgian bits and bobs hiding way up towards the ceiling, including a prominent pink elephant poking his head up above the doorway.

We even had time to piece together the West Yorkshire dialect that litters the wall, with it’s talk of unfortunate lovers, worms and ducks.

Nil points for the service (we’re blaming it on the lack of hats, or even Mary Jane) although that’s only because it was my Mum who got the worlds smallest coffee after the worlds longest wait (if it had happened to anyone else I’d have just used the opportunity for another pint).

Bar t’at will certainly get a second chance though and I’ll be jumping on the train from Leeds one weekend to drink the hand pulls and the fridges dry, hopefully to the point where I’m singing along to the walls even though I can’t read them.

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Funny how one mention of something and suddenly it’s everywhere. A quick flick through the later chapters of Hops & Glory (to settle an argument in my head over the ownership of some beer brands) and you can’t scan a page without mention of Bass, that famous brewery and brand associated with British beer across the world. Then on Sunday, I drive past a pub in the Halewood area of Liverpool with huge Bass signage, that famous cursive typeface set into the old stonework. Just my luck I find it on Google Streetview and there’s scaffolding around it impairing the view!

Later on the way back across the M62 I spot a second Bass-signed pub somewhere in a village on the border of Yorkshire and Lancashire. “Like buses these Bass pubs” I tell myself. Nice to see the logo still peeping into modern life despite it’s fall from grace.

And then we nip to our local Toby Carvery (and my interesting first pint for Cask Ale Week) the only place in our area you can rely on (semi-decent at best) food on a Sunday evening. As we leave to retire to a re-run of Desperate Housewives and an early night, I somehow can’t miss the framed beer pictures in the entrance hall. Bass, naturally, albeit less fancy type face, but plenty of that brand-building triangular logo.

Bet I won’t see or here another Bass reference for months now…

You might have to change your pronunciation to get it...

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On the lead up to Christmas me and a few or my more intellectually challenged University mates decided to go for a day out in Nottingham to see if we still had the stamina to managed an ‘all-dayer’.  Obviously I knew that the ales were going to merge at some point after lunch and that the details would be difficult to get down. I therefore armed myself with a Cancer Research pen and 2010 Diary and met at the 10am rendezvous, The Bank pub, for beer and breakfast.

Bass in The Bank

The Bank is what I would dub a Weatherspoons rip-off. The breakfast menu was almost identical to Weatherspoons and the range of beers available was similar. I was therefore able to order a pint of Bass to go with my Americano and Large Breakfast. I couldn’t  remember whether I’d ever actually  had Bass before but I knew that it used to be very popular with my Dad’s friends out of  a can. The lightness suited accompanying a large meal and my initial impression was of an relatively sweet toffee flavour but this was tempered by the development of a more peppery body. The existence of these flavours was I think testament to how well the ale was kept and I have since been disappointed when having the same pint at The Wobbly Wheel near Banbury where none of these subtly complex flavours appeared from ‘the same’ pint.

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