Okay the aged beer, but there 220 years is too long? Yet there are those who did (drink it), although - to be honest - it was not the beer to be cured, but the yeasts used to produce it.
The story is this: a team of Australian researchers, who explored the wreck of a merchant ship sank off the coast of Tasmania in 1797, the Sydney Cove, has recovered from the hold of the cargo, including two bottles - it was later discovered in the laboratory - contained still active yeast (Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces).
Using the recovered samples and a method dating back to the eighteenth century preparation, the researchers produced a batch of beer that with a fancy twist, then called Conservation Ale. The also have drunk, it is natural, and they found it "light and fresh".
THE SYDNEY COVE. The freighter was headed to Port Jackson (Australia) with a load of clothes, tea, rice and beer. The wreck was discovered in 1977 and, over the years, divers have recovered - among other things - different bottles, now in the Queen Victoria Meuseum of Launcheston, Tasmania. It was David Thurrowgood, curator of the museum and chemist by training, to suspect that the yeast could still be active.
Yeasts belonging to the genus Saccharomyces are also widely used today, and for food productions that alcoholic (beer and wine). As is Saccharomyces cerevisia, also known known as yeast. The genus Brettanomyces is instead known for its fermentations little predictable, but it was the most used seventeenth century for the production of beer.
Those recovered, however, contain different genetic sequences from any modern strain: a mix between those who today are used by brewers, bakers and wine makers. The researchers compared these genetic sequences with those of many yeasts in use today, in Australia and around the world, have responded the absolute uniqueness.
