World's Oldest Beer found at the bottom of the sea!!

Just saw this online, thought I'd pass it along. You have to wonder how the brew is holding up. They say the cultures in the bottle are still alive. Get a couple of craftbrewers over there to buy a few bottles, and clone it?


http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/03/baltic.sea.beer/index.html?hpt=T2

hmm... they didn't say how deep it was but obviously not too deep.

awesome!!

humann_brewing said:

hmm... they didn't say how deep it was but obviously not too deep.

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7th paragraph down from the top:

He said the wreck was about 50 meters deep (roughly 164 feet) in between the Aland island chain and Finland.

And this makes 5 threads on the topic...My bet holds, 7 by Monday. ANyone wanna change their bets?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/worlds-oldest-beer-recovered-shipwreck-194224/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/worlds-oldest-beer-found-shipwreck-194027/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/worlds-oldest-beer-found-shipwreck-194078/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/coming-soon-wyeast-194075/

Actually they said the yeast was still alive because the beer was carbonated. I don't buy that agument, it just shows the bottles were tight. It doesn't rule out though that the yeast is alive. Probably rather low alcohol, under pressure, dark and a constant 4 degrees C. Rather optimal conditions. But 200 years... we'll see....

Pretty dang cool. I'd love to try one.

Couple things bothered me about the article, though:

He said the cold sea water was a perfect way to store the spirits, with the temperature remaining a near-constant 4-5 degrees Celsius (around freezing temperature in Fahrenheit, or 32 degrees)

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Well, sure if by "around freezing" you mean almost 10 degrees above freezing than sure. I'll just go "boil" some spaghetti at 192*F (at my elevation, water boils at 202*F.)

It is also unknown whether the beer went flat while sitting at the bottom of the Baltic for such a long time.

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Okay I may be very wrong about this but is there really any reason it would have gone flat? The beer is corked, stored under pressure/cold and the yeast is still alive.

... so the champagne is fine, though?

Reno_eNVy_446 said:

Well, sure if by "around freezing" you mean almost 10 degrees above freezing than sure. I'll just go "boil" some spaghetti at 192*F (at my elevation, water boils at 202*F.)

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4-5 degrees is not quite what I would call "almost 10".

Also, not sure if you meant to imply it, but freezing point (actually melting point to be precise) isn't affected by elevation...

hexmonkey said:

4-5 degrees is not quite what I would call "almost 10".

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5*C = 41*F
41 - 32 = 9
9 = pretty dang close to 10

hexmonkey said:

Also, not sure if you meant to imply it, but freezing point (actually melting point to be precise) isn't affected by elevation...

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Nope, didn't mean to imply that at all. I was just showing another set a numbers that are 10 degrees apart... ya know, like 202 and 192

Reno_eNVy_446 said:

5*C = 41*F
41 - 32 = 9
9 = pretty dang close to 10

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LOL I see the problem - our difference in opinion lies in a difference in the definition (or precision) of the word "degree". I was considering the 5 degrees in Celsius.

Stupid metric system!

Back on topic, I also felt like the article author was clearly not a beer person or they wouldn't have suggested that the beer could be flat, considering they didn't question the flatness of the champagne...?