Century-old brew’s clues
Beer from seabed is returning to Scotland
A BOTTLE of Glaswegian beer found washed up at a Point Lonsdale shipwreck will next week return home to its brewhouse more than 150 years after it was made.
Hamlyn Heights diver Jim Anderson recovered the full bottle of beer — most likely stout or India pale ale — while scuba diving at the Light of the Age shipwreck in the 1970s.
The Light of the Age, transporting immigrants from England to Melbourne, wrecked near Point Lonsdale in 1868 when its drunk captain Tom Reid Porter steered the ship into trouble.
According to official documents, the captain was drunk for the entire journey from Liverpool and spent most the trip locked in his bunker.
Most of the crew were also drunk and had “improper relationships” with female passengers.
Lax heritage laws in the 1970s allowed divers to retrieve anything they found at ship- wrecks and Mr Anderson picked up the intact bottle and took it home.
“I found the bottle in about two metres of water in rocks and sand and saw the base sticking out,” Mr Anderson said.
The dark brown opaque bottle, filled with liquid, was capped with a cork and pewter seal stamped Wellpark Brewery — a brewery in Glasgow known for producing popular Scottish beer Tennent’s Lager.
Mr Anderson, a Geelong Skindivers Club member, took a few pictures of the bottle before storing it under his house and forgetting about it until the mid 2000s.
About 10 years ago he attempted to contact the Glaswegian brewery but never heard back.
Then, this year he reached out to the brewery again — asking if they would like him to send the bottle back to Glasgow. This time they responded. “I wanted to know if they would be able to reproduce the beer,” Mr Anderson said.
Brewers say the bottle probably contains stout or India pale ale.
“Records from the 1860s are not complete, however we can deduce certain beer that would likely to be on board,” retired Wellpark Brewery employee Ivor Reid told Mr Anderson.
At the time the brewery was known for producing single and double stouts, scotch ale and India pale ale, which was typically brewed in Great Britain for export to India.
It also, for reasons unknown, had a specific cellar called Geelong.
“The hop rate was high and compared with modern beers would be considered very bitter in taste,” Mr Reid said.
“The high hop rates gave the beers a sterile quality that protected the beer from spoilage, particularly since it was a long journey across the equator from Glasgow to India and other parts of the empire.”
The bottle is a registered Commonwealth Australia artefact and with the permission of the Australian Government will next week be shipped to Glasgow where it will be stored at the Wellpark Brewery Museum.
Brewers believe the beer will have spoiled and will not be able to be reproduced.