Yeast microbes from the world’s oldest bottle of beer — a 220-year-old bottle found in one of Australia’s earliest shipwrecks — are being used to create a new, modern beer with the characteristic taste of the 18th-century brew. The yeast was grown from the contents of a bottle of beer recovered from the wreck of the Sydney Cove, a British trading ship that got caught in a storm near the island of Tasmania, off Australia’s south coast, in 1797 while on its way from Calcutta to the prison colony at Port Jackson, now the city of Sydney. The crew of the Sydney Cove survived by grounding the sinking ship on a tiny island off northern Tasmania, now called Preservation Island, which is part of the inspiration for the name of the recreated beer: Preservation Ale.

Yeast microbes from the world’s oldest bottle of beer — a 220-year-old bottle found in one of Australia’s earliest shipwrecks — are being used to create a new, modern beer with the characteristic taste of the 18th-century brew. The yeast was grown from the contents of a bottle of beer recovered from the wreck of the Sydney Cove, a British trading ship that got caught in a storm near the island of Tasmania, off Australia’s south coast, in 1797 while on its way from Calcutta to the prison colony at Port Jackson, now the city of Sydney. The crew of the Sydney Cove survived by grounding the sinking ship on a tiny island off northern Tasmania, now called Preservation Island, which is part of the inspiration for the name of the recreated beer: Preservation Ale. http://ift.tt/2fzOHzb