Finnish scientists may soon have a new brew on tap, if they can
figure out the recipe used to make what is perhaps the oldest
known bottled beer in the world. For about 200 years, five brown
bottles of beer were kept well-chilled on a shipwreck in the
Baltic Sea. One of those prized bottles is currently at the VTT
Technical Research Center of Finland, being carefully analyzed
by scientists clothed in clean room coveralls and bouffant caps,
face masks, and gloves. The brewmaster who created that beer
could not have ever imagined such a fuss over it. Five of his
bottles survived a shipwreck during the early 1800s off the
Åland Islands of Finland. The beer was discovered in the summer
of 2010 by divers who had just recovered the oldest-known cache
of bottled champagne from the same shipwreck. According to CNN,
the ship may have been sailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, to St.
Petersburg, Russia, carrying on board gifts from King Louis XVI
of France to the Russian Imperial Court. The VTT scientists, who
have conside