World’s Oldest Beer from a 220-year-old Shipwreck Brought Back to Life

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A group of Australian scientists claim they could recreate the world’s oldest beer by reviving the yeast of a 220-year-old beer salvaged from the shipwrecked Sydney Cove.

Treasures from the wreck are the star attraction at the Queen Victoria museum in Launceston in Tasmania’s north.  When chemist-turned-conservator David Thurrowgood found the beer bottles in the museum’s storage area when he began working at the museum 18 months ago, he was surprised to find one still had liquid inside.

For almost two centuries the beer sat forgotten, sealed beneath a layer of sand and seagrass, conditions that preserved the organic material unusually well until it was salvaged in 1990.

In addition to the unopened bottle, two samples from another bottle which had been carefully decanted at the time of the wreck’s salvage, were found in separate parts of the museum. Brimming with optimism, in November 2015 the conservator contacted several top scientists and got an abrupt reality check.

A syringe sample from the one precious unopened bottle was taken in a highly sterilised room.  But the hopes of yeast specialist Dr Anthony Borneman, from the Australian Wine Research Institute and colleague Simon Dillon faded when the sample returned no results. But the two samples from the Tasmanian wreck that were decanted 20 years ago did come to life.

A detailed DNA analysis of the yeasts was undertaken to find out if the yeasts were present because of contamination.  The brewer’s yeast brettanomyces was found.  The yeast was a hybrid that sat closest on the family tree to Trappist ale, made by monks in Belgium.

They all agree they need to go back to the wreck, dig deeper, salvage more bottles, and send them straight to the lab.  In the meantime, a homebrew using the yeast has been made based on a common English ale recipe.

The beer has been named Preservation Ale by Mr Thurrowgood, after Preservation Island, and is quite possibly a revival of the world’s oldest beer.

Source: ABC