End Your Fishing Day With Early 19th Century Beer

As a few of you pointed out on yesterday’s blog about an ice fishing duo that caught a scuba diver, all is well that ends in free beer. Now imagine if that beer was crafted in the early 1800s. Thanks to science and some lucky divers, it might not be long before you can quench your thirst with the nectar of long-gone Finnish brewmakers. I know this isn’t a fishing story, but if you like cold suds and have a propensity for snagging the bottom, it’ll get you dreaming.

Pictured above is a preserved bottle of beer pulled from an early 1800s shipwreck 160 feet below the surface of the Baltic Sea. Probably pretty skunky by now, right? Actually, it wasn’t too bad (though a touch salty) according to the tasters quoted in this U.K. Telegraph story. I mean, if you think about it, it’s colder than your favorite Igloo cooler down there.

What’s interesting about this beer is not the bottle found, but the fact that because it was preserved, brew masters can deconstruct the ingredients and recreate the ancient recipe. Based on the description of beer in the article, it sounds similar to Blue Moon.

Now I’ve never been lucky enough to hook an unopened and potentially priceless bottle of beer, but I did once snag a plastic bag in a local lake which contained (I’m not kidding) an unopened bottle of Crystal Pepsi. Remember that stuff? I found a garbage can and got rid of it. I hated it in the 90s, so no way was I sipping off a 15-year-old mud-covered bottle.