Last September (2023), my friend sent me a link to an article about a “Beer Contest.” Here’s the link. He said “We should enter!” … I said “Hell’s Yes!” When you click through to the contest, you’ll see that it was put on by Sierra Nevada Brewing. This already piqued my interest! One of my favorite breweries in the US and (as I mentioned in my previous posts) one of my Top 30 places to drink a beer.
This particular competition was for their newest brewery–in the Asheville, North Carolina area. So, if you win, you get to 1) go to the brewery and brew a custom beer with the brewers, 2) hang out and drink great beer, and 3) enjoy all the fun that being in Asheville provides (for me Mountain Biking and Disc Golf are two that come to mind).
We decided to enter. Being my normal “not really into the details” kind of guy, I skimmed the rules and saw we needed to provide a video not longer than 30 seconds. The competition rules stated this was a “Friend’s Reunion” competition to celebrate the history of the 40-plus year-old Sierra Nevada Pale Ale–‘Still the One! that brings friends together.’
Fortunately, my friend looked a little closer at the rules and found the criteria for the judging. They were: 1) relevance to the theme, 2) creativity and 3) originality. Our first thought was to have a rotating list of pictures of our group of friends from the last twenty-plus years, supported with our version of a “Still the One” song. The two songs i could remember were Shania Twain’s “Still the One” and Orleans “Still the One.” Either one of those two would have worked with some modified lyrics, but we read the rules even closer and realized we couldn’t use copyrighted material.
We decided to go ahead and write our own tune–my focus was having a catchy rhythm, keeping in mind the theme of the contest. I cracked open a Sierra Nevada and started strumming my guitar. haha. I came up with this chord progression: G – D – Dsus2 – A to open G, G and repeat. Here’s a link to my initial attempt. Although not fully developed at the time, these are the lyrics that were kind of floating around in my head while I was playing:
- Crafting it and Brewing it … for a long time!
- Bringing it and Drinking it … for a good time!
- Wanting to Remember it … for a lifetime! (Sierra Nevada. Still the Beer!)
- Chugging it or Sipping it … what a flavor!
- With my Friends enjoying it … All Together!
- 40 plus and going strong … Classic Pale Ale!
My friend worked his musical magic on my song, we added the lyrics above, and (after having to change some pictures based on an additional reading of the rules … haha) we submitted it to the contest. Here’s a link to the actual 30-second submission.
We submitted our entry pretty early in the contest window — the site had a scrolling list of the entries. Remember when I said we needed to submit a video? All I saw for the entries from other people were photos. My friend and I both thought these were thumbnails from submitted videos from other entrants. After we had submitted ours, we waited to see our “photo” show up in the list. However, when it showed up, it was a video! Apparently, if I had paid closer attention, I would have seen that you could either submit a video OR a photo. haha. Good thing I didn’t see that, because we might have just submitted a photo.
On my 60th birthday (!!), the contest ended … we had to wait another three weeks to find out who won. On the 8th of November I was out on a bike ride–I had checked the site that morning to see if they had posted anything–there wasn’t anything there, so I forgot about it. My friend was the actual person to submit the entry–I typed up the text for our written entry to answer the questions for submission: (1) Tell Us Why Your Friends are the Best, and (2) Tell Us Why You All Deserve an Ultimate Friend Reunion Trip to Asheville. He submitted the video and the “essay.”
That meant he was the one notified — and we won! Woo Hoo! We are heading to the Sierra Nevada Brewery near Asheville for a fun-filled weekend! That’s why I consider myself to be an “award-winning” songwriter. haha. Stand by for the report on the festivities!
Beermentor