Living fossils are generally defined as organisms that have remained essentially unchanged since the beginning of time. Examples include the horseshoe crab, the ginkgo tree and, of course, Tankard. For 40 years, the Frankfurt-based beer-metal crew has been praising alcohol and the simple life with their powerful gospel, a highly unlikely success story that began four decades ago and culminated in a fossil of an extinct starfish species being officially named after them: Ophiura tankardi. This is a story of close camaraderie, of eternal thirst, of four heavy metal vanguards dipping their toes into an ocean of alcohol and testing how far they can go.