Reconstruction of a bicentennial beer

Beer from the bottom of the Baltic Sea may return to the shelves
BBCIn July 2010, a group of divers found the remains of a two-masted vessel at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, apparently sunk between 1800 and 1830.

The ship was apparently heading from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg and was carrying a cargo of alcohol to the Russian capital.

At first, it was thought that the bottles were exclusively Heidsieck champagne, Veuve Clicquot and Juglar. However, when the bottles were lifted to the surface, one of them exploded, and it turned out that it was beer. It was later found that several other bottles also contained beer. Moreover, as four experts found out, it was quite usable.

The authorities of the Aland Islands appealed to the Finnish Center for Technical Research (VTT) with a request to restore the recipe. According to representatives of the research center, the beer turned out to be sour with notes of something burnt. "The experts who tasted the contents of the bottles said that it tasted very old beer, which is not surprising," said Dr. Annika Wilhelmson.

Now scientists will try to find living cells of yeast fungi or other microorganisms. "So far we've only seen the cells through a microscope, but we don't know if they're dead or alive," Wilhelmson said. "If we fail to find living microorganisms, we will look at their DNA and compare them with the currently known brewer's yeast species."

Finnish researchers believe that the main difficulty will be to determine the type of hops used. In general, scientists admit that whatever the results, they will have to think a lot anyway.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru09.02.2011