{"id":557,"date":"2008-05-09T06:13:05","date_gmt":"2008-05-09T13:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/the-1968-hardys-it-didnt-suck\/"},"modified":"2008-05-09T06:53:43","modified_gmt":"2008-05-09T13:53:43","slug":"the-1968-hardys-it-didnt-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/the-1968-hardys-it-didnt-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1968 Hardy&#8217;s &#8211; It didn&#8217;t suck"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps we should have headed to one of the nearby casinos last night. It takes a certain amount of luck to open seven bottles of Thomas Hardy&#8217;s Ale and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realbeer.com\/blog\/?p=434\">find them all outstanding<\/a>. Particularly when the last one is 40 years old.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.appellationbeer.com\/images\/20080509-cork.jpg\" alt=\"Thomas Hardy's ale\" class=\"alignright\"\/>By the time we got to the 1968 the sun had set on the Sandia Mountains &#151; we drank these beers on our back portal &#151; and the lights had come up in the Rio Grande Valley. We weren&#8217;t comparing how each beer looked in the glass or taking notes; instead talking about things friends talk about, although that certainly included the aromas and flavors from the succession of beers.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, they were from 2003 (the first batch brewed at O&#8217;Hanlon&#8217;s), 1999 (the last batch brewed at Eldridge Pope), 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992 and then the 1968. [See yesterday&#8217;s post for details about <a href=\"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/time-to-open-the-1968-hardys-ale\/\">how we got the 1968.<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>Sorry, I don&#8217;t have a lot of adjectives for you. Perhaps that&#8217;s not in the spirit of blogging, but those are going to stay out there in the cool New Mexico air.<\/p>\n<p>OK, since you guys pitched in with such friendly suggestions about dealing with the cork, just a few details. This was an <a href=\"http:\/\/lostabbey.com\/blog\/?p=77\">&#8220;A&#8221; bottle<\/a>, with the cork protruding from the top. When I gave it a gentle tug it broke off, leaving nicely solid cork in the neck.<\/p>\n<p>That came out easily and cleanly with a corkscrew, emitting a surprising <em>pop.<\/em> We briefly discussed the implications &#151; a little something wild going on after 40 years? First impressions included <em>funky, adhesive<\/em> and <em>sewer water . . . but in a good way.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Within minutes those volatiles had faded. Still a lot going on in the glass, both great and not-so-great.<\/p>\n<p>The best part? It sure as heck was still beer. And it sure as heck had soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps we should have headed to one of the nearby casinos last night. It takes a certain amount of luck to open seven bottles of Thomas Hardy&#8217;s Ale and find them all outstanding. Particularly when the last one is 40 years old. By the time we got to the 1968 the sun had set on &#8230; <a title=\"The 1968 Hardy&#8217;s &#8211; It didn&#8217;t suck\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/the-1968-hardys-it-didnt-suck\/\" aria-label=\"More on The 1968 Hardy&#8217;s &#8211; It didn&#8217;t suck\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beers-of-conviction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-8Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}