TANKARD - The Beauty And The Beer LP HRR 121, limited to 750 copies, 100 x ultra clear/ beer splatter + 250 x beer + 400 x black vinyl, 4 page lyric insert Andreas Geremia - Vocals Andreas Gutjahr - Guitar Frank Thorwarth - Bass Olaf Zissel - Drums -Ice-olation -We Still Drink the Old Ways -Forsaken World -Rockstars No. 1 -The Beauty and the Beast -Blue Rage - Black Redemption -Frankfurt: We Need More Beer -Metaltometal -Dirty Digger -Shaken Not Stirred SOLD OUT!

„The Beauty and the Beer“ closes off High Roller Records’ vinyl re-release campaign of Tankard’s back catalogue (of official studio albums). “The Beauty and the Beer“ was released hot on the heels of “Beast of Bourbon”. Frontman Gerre characterizes the album as following: “I think that ‘The Beauty and the Beer’ is to be seen as part of a series of Tankard albums beginning with ‘B-Day’. Maybe it wasn’t as heavy as ‘Beast of Bourbon’ but stylistically there weren’t a lot of changes at all. We recorded the album shortly before our 25th anniversary and the atmosphere within the band was really good. After a long time we once again had the opportunity to shoot a videoclip (for ‘The Beauty and the Beast’). That was great!” A few songs from “The Beauty and the Beer“ have stood the test of time, according to Gerre: “’Shaken not stirred’ was my favourite on the album back then. Today we are still playing ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ live. ‘We still drink the old Ways’ was also part of our setlist up until very recently. Unfortunately, it had to go as we also want to play some new material live ...” Judging from the title, "Metaltometal" sounds like a take on Manowar. “No,” says Gerre. “’Kings of Beer’ was our pun on Manowar, ‘Metaltometal’ just says that Metal is the best music in the world. No question about that.“ „Rockstars No.1“ could be, well, all about rockstars … Have Tankard over the years supported any rockstar band with huge egos? That does not seem to be the case: “No, can’t remember any rockstar behaviour. Well, apart from the fact that Slayer once nicked my Birkenstock sandals ...” As every serious Tankard supporter definitely knows, Gerre is a staunch Eintracht Frankfurt fan. The band even appeared live in front of their own fans before a German Cup Final in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. However, they never released their Frankfurt song on record. Gerre says: “No, unfortunately not. But there are plans to put it out on vinyl. We did another Frankfurt song as well, ‘Forza SGE’, so those two need to be made available on record.” Eintracht’s big local rival are of course Kickers Offenbach. But Frankfurt’s second team, FSV Frankfurt, also has a small cult following and plays in the 2nd Bundesliga in Germany. How does Gerre judge Eintracht’s local rivals? “I don’t really care that much,” he explains. “I’m supporting Eintracht, this is all that counts!” So what about a Tankard football song supporting the German national team? “Well,” says Gerre. “Of course we’re watching the World Championship games on tele but we’re more into supporting our local team.” No doubt Tankard will forever be tied to their image as a “hard-drinking Metal band”. Was this image a blessing or a curse? Gerre: “After we recorded our second demo ‚Alcoholic Metal’ in 1985, this image has stuck. In the mid-‘90’s, we tried to steer away from this image. This did not really work out the way we planned. Today we even make fun of ourselves and are quite happy to do so. However, quite often the press only concentrates on writing about our image. They should really accept that we have recorded some mighty fine albums over the years ...” Matthias Mader