The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Return of bottle – 150 years after shipwreck
Stout which sank Down Under returns to Scotland
A 150-year-old bottle of beer discovered near a shipwreck off the coast of Australia has been returned to its brewery in Glasgow.
The bottle of stout was found by diver Jim Anderson close to where the ill-fated clipper The Light of The Age sank near Melbourne in January 1868 on a voyage from Liverpool.
Mr Anderson made the find in the 1970s and saw a Wellpark Brewery stamp.
He eventually contacted the brewery and has now returned the bottle to Glasgow, where it will feature in a new £1 million visitor centre that tells the story of Tennent’s Lager.
The stout pre-dates Tennent’s Lager but was made in the Wellpark Brewery that created the famed drink.
Mr Anderson, 72, has travelled to Scotland with his wife Jan for the opening of the Tennent’s Visitor Centre on November 22.
He said: “I found it on a dive in the 1970s, photographed it, and put it in my basement along with other things I’d salvaged from wrecks from those days.
“It was there for years, and it wasn’t until I found the old photographs when I was looking through an old book earlier this year.
“I contacted Tennent’s to see if they were interested in the bottle, which they were, and I was delighted.
“This little bottle is a reminder of the historic connection between Australia and Scotland, too.”
Tennent’s bosses say the new visitor centre at its Wellpark Brewery will tell the history of brewing in the area from the 1500s through to the present day.
To mark the shipwrecked bottle’s homecoming, Tennent’s brewers have gone back through old recipes in order to recreate a commemorative-edition run of the stout.