Sunken booty: 200-year-old beer and champagne found at bottom of sea tested for original flavours

Five years ago, divers exploring a shipwreck off the coast of Finland discovered a treasure trove of lager beer lying hidden at the bottom of the ocean for 170 years. Scientists have tasted the 19th century brew and like any good forensic detectives, they’ve chemically tested them to better understand what the original flavours would have been.

The spirits were discovered in July 2010 after being uncovered in the wreckage of a schooner that sank in 50 meters of water in the Baltic Sea sometime in the 1840s. Divers managed to recover 150 intact bottles of champagne and five bottles of beer—one of which happened to break on the deck of their ship, and started to foam—a good indication that it still had active yeast. A few daring souls on board had the courage to taste the historical brew and were surprised to find that it had a taste that wasn’t so unfamiliar.

But seawater seeping into the bottles and bacterial activity running rampant inside for a better part of two centuries, wreaked havoc with the flavour of the beers. Even for the most devoted connoisseur, it’s unlikely that this drink would be very appealing.

A research team working out of the Technical Research Center of Finland, who published their results in last month’s issue of the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, uncorked a couple of the remaining bottles and took a brave sniff and sip. They describe the aroma and taste as an unpleasant salty mix of overripe cheese, sulfur and cabbage — all caused by the salty seawater overpowering the hop or malty flavour it may have originally had. Adding to the pungent cocktail of the sea would be all the bacteria growing inside over the years.

Detailed chemical analysis indicates the beer may have had quite a fruity and much more sour flavour to it when compared to its present-day brew counterparts. The research team speculates that this most likely reflects the different way beer and its yeast-derived flavours were manufactured in the 19th century which could be due to mash being heated over an open fire. Until the late 19th century, when brewers figured out how to keep acid-prodding bacteria out of their recipes, most beers probably tasted sour, especially to our modern palettes.

And what about that stash of champagne? Those seemed to fair much better because the corks managed to seal it off from the pressures and saltiness of the ocean water for the most part. The cork of one of the bottles that was brought back to surface during the salvage operation actually popped due to the difference in air pressure.

The divers, of course, took a quick swig.

And to their surprise it retained a pleasant taste that was probably a lot more representative of original flavours. A wine expert who got to drink the champagne — of the brands Veuve Clicquot and Juglar — described it as having a fresh taste of sweet flavours of honey and lime blossoms, with hints of the oak casks they were originally stored in.

It turns that leaving leaving bottles of at the bottom of the ocean, under pressure and in the dark for nearly 200 years does not do much harm. If anything, it could have a positive effect. A grouping of eleven of the bottles of Chardonay-like tasting Champagne ended up going up for auction and fetching $156,000.