Beer lovers, rejoice!
Yeast found inside beer bottles from a 220-year-old shipwreck off Australia has been used to resurrect what’s being touted as the world’s oldest beer.
“This is the oldest known beer-brewing yeast in the world by far. This is certainly the only pre-Industrial Revolution-brewing yeast surviving in the world so, scientifically, it’s actually very important,” said Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery conservator David Thurrowgood to Bega District News.
The museum, in collaboration with the Australian Wine Research Institute and brewers at Australia’s James Squire breweries, were able to miraculously bring the beer – called The Wreck Preservation Ale – to life.
What was created was a porter-style beer that’s “dark, malty, spicy and stormy” with “hints of blackcurrant and spices, giving it a rich and smooth taste,” the Examiner newspaper reported.
The beer was made with yeast taken from the Sydney Cove ship, which wrecked just off Preservation Island between Tasmania and mainland Australia in February 1797.
The merchant vessel, which was journeying to Port Jackson in Sydney from India’s Calcutta, now Kolkata, was carrying a cargo of tea, ceramics, rice, tobacco and about 31,500 liters of beer.
During excavation of the shipwreck between 1977 and the 1990s, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery retrieved items from the remains, including beer bottles, for its Sydney Cove collection.
The contents of the beer bottles were later examined by scientists, and the yeast inside the bottles – recovered from the depths of the Bass Strait – was found to be alive, according to Bega District News.
“The yeast was essentially in hibernation. … What we were able to do was revive that yeast in laboratories in South Australia and to get it working again as a viable brewing yeast,” Thurrowgood told the news outlet.
The newly created, limited-edition beer will be up for grabs at the Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular in Sydney and Melbourne this month.
It will also be available on-tap at James Squire brew-houses across Australia in June, the Examiner reported.
“Take a sip of history with this rich, spicy porter-style brew. Discovered at the bottom of the ocean in a 220-year-old shipwreck, the world’s oldest yeast has been tamed and crafted into a special, one-off release for GABS 2018,” the James Squire brewery wrote on its website in a promotion for the historic beer.
“The Wreck is truly a once in a lifetime taste,” the James Squire brewery wrote. “Two centuries ago, this beer never reached its final destination. Today, we like to think The Wreck has finally made its way home.”