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Monday, December 11, 2006

137 Year Old Beer? Tasty!

And I thought my Fred #1 was valuable. Check this out:
It was brewed in the year that the Suez Canal opened, Charles Dickens embarked on one of his last literary tours and the Cutty Sark was launched in Scotland.

But the recently-discovered cache of 1869 ale should have been undrinkable, given the conventional brewing wisdom that even the best beers are supposed to last no more than a couple of decades. Beer experts, however, say the 137-year-old brew tastes "absolutely amazing".

The Victorian beer was part of a cache of 250 vintage bottles found in the vaults of Worthington's White Shield brewery in Burton-on-Trent. The bottles will not be sold and have yet to be valued....

The bottles were sealed with corks and wax and stored in even, cool temperatures, in the dark and placed on their side to stop the corks drying out....

The find includes ales brewed to commemorate royal events, including one made by the late Earl Spencer to mark the birth of Prince William in 1982. Another was brewed in 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.
The question is, if you actually acquired a bottle, would you have the guts to drink it?

5 comments:

  1. I would absolutely drink it. I want some tasting notes! Can't even imagine what it would taste like ...

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  2. Pass that chance up? no way, In fact they might have a problem stopping me if give it.

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  3. I'm sure these bottles will be auctioned off.... I wonder what the price will be??

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  4. I wonder if they will be auctioned off--I could see auctioning a few off, but I wouldn't be surprised if the brewery hung onto a bunch of them. I'd be willing to part with some serious cash--for me--but I suspect a bottle would exceed even my highest price. And then I don't know if I could drink it. Maybe I'd wait until something really big happened to celebrate.

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  5. Hmmm... The British are a little more sentimental about these things... But, then again, for a price!? They's acution them off at Christie's or the like...

    I think a new years eve celebration with some very close beer loving friends would be a good time to open... I think it's aged enough! ;-}

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