Taste this!

So here I am, the morning after being at The Taste of Tasmania, suffering the slings and arrows that are the effect of drinking cloudy, yeasty beer.

The huddled masses that make up the crowds at the Taste are an experience to negotiate. It’s so noisy that you seem to lose the ability to navigate.

All conversation is carried on intensely with people either giving up any hope of listening or with a forward lean and a combination of part lip reading, part catching the odd word, and part, well this all pretty meaningless anyway. The accoustics of the room are loud and boomy which isn’t helped by the noise of over-amplified bang and twang cacophonic music.The low frequency thud of an electronic bass guitar has to be one of the most brain cell killing noises ever devised by mankind. It might be the origin of the description of modern commercial music as ‘dum dum dum’ and dumber, music. Drummers seem to feel it obligatory to play like an octopus having an epileptic fit.

I find my way to the rear of the event, a position that comes natural to me as a follower of military history. It is the beer tent.I feel at home.I am a natural beer drinker. I had my first drink of beer at the age of four at my gran’s. They used to put a red hot poker in the jug of beer and then drink it.

I always ask for the hoppiest beer. I don’t care for sweet, malty beers, except draft Guinness in Ireland. The people on the beer stands offer a small taste to try. I plump for a pale ale. I noticed that it was not a clear beer, in fact it was disinctly cloudy. There was hint of home brew in the flavour, and a new beer, green taste.The hops wrapped around the back of my tongue like barbed wire. After I’d had a few good swallows I paused, the flavours and barbed wire hops clung to my tongue, inviting roast beef and mustard as a welcome partner, or a strong cheddar with a bit of good bread.

As I cheered with the beer the crowds looked increasingly po faced to me. I love to drink beer, play music and sing. I get thrown out of some really lovely places because of this compulsive, obsessive desire to enjoy life here in this manner.

“Waltzing Matilda’ played on a bicycle pump usualy gets a bit of attention. People looked embarrassed; poor old man making an exhibition of himself. I gave it a few old sea shanties on the penny whistle. Nothing. The groups huddled around the tables pulled in tighter. Nobody looked in my direction; least not while I was looking. I assembled my clarinet. ‘Oh no,he’s not going to play that bloody thing is he.’

‘Yes, he bloody well is’.

We started on ‘Daisy Daisy’. It works in nursing homes and on little children. Obviously something goes missing in the middle years because the effect was the opposite of electrifying.’Yellow Submarine’ caused a bit of a sing, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and ‘Rule Britannia” started a rumour that I was one of the Barmy Army; no such luck.

For the past few years I have tried unsuccessfully to get the Beer Festival wallahs to have a German Beer Hall type band at the event.

They have never replied to my requests.

Last night in the Taste I felt a similar desire to have a good time with beer and music.

Who organises these events?

Have they ever been out of Tasmania or are they, along with local radio, part of the plot to dumb things down?