Scientists have analyzed some of the oldest preserved beer samples from an 1840's shipwreck in hopes of gaining insight into how it was made. And the verdict is literally sour.

The brew was discovered in 2010 during the excavation of a schooner at the bottom of the Baltic Sea near Finland. The ship believed to have gone down about 170 years ago was found to be brimming with booze.

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The beer was heavily diluted with salt water after spending centuries under the sea. But there was still enough of the original liquid there for researchers at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. and the Technical University of Munich to analyze and get a good idea of the recipe.

"Despite the fact that it was so amazingly old, there was a freshness to the wine. It wasn't debilitated in any way. Rather, it had a clear acidity which reinforced the sweetness. Finally, a very clear taste of having been stored in oak casks," said wine expert Ella Grussner Cromwell-Morgan

They performed analytical testing to determine the brew's rough composition. Samples from two separate bottles appeared to be completely different beers based on their hop contents.

They found the yeast-derived flavor compounds were not far off from today's beers. The samples, however, contained higher levels of rose-like phenylethanol than modern drinks.

Researchers also discovered formed bubble of gas, presumably CO2, which produces light foam. Both beers were bright golden yellow with little haze and sweeter than modern wine. On the other hand, the ancient beer was about as sour as can be.

It's claimed that storing wine at the bottom of the sea is actually a better environment than the best wine cellar.

Ancient beers would have all been sour beer in comparison to modern tastes. This is because brewers only learned how to keep acid-producing bacteria out of the beer in the second half of the 19th century. This meant even the fruity flavored beers discovered in the shipwreck all sour beers.

The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.

TagsBeer, ancient beer, 170-Year-Old Beer, 170-Year-Old Shipwreck Beer, alcoholic beverage, brew recipe, brewery, Finland