150YO shipwrecked Glaswegian beer returns home from Australia

A 150-year-old bottle of stout, produced in Glasgow by Tennent’s brewery, is returning to Scotland after it was found by a diver off the coast of Melbourne, still sealed with its contents intact, in the 1970s.

Jim Anderson with the historic bottle

Believed to be one of the oldest British beers in existence, the ancient brew was discovered by Australian diver Jim Anderson off the coast of Melbourne in the 1970s, close to where the ill-fated clipper, The Light of The Age, run aground in 1868 on a voyage from Liverpool.

At the time, Wellpark Brewery in Glasgow was the biggest exporter of bottled beer in the world. However the stout on board pre-dates the Tennent’s Lager brand, which was first brewed at the brewery in 1885.

The clipper was carrying a crew of 34 and 42 passengers on its final journey. A Marine Board investigation found that the captain had been drunk for large parts of the ill-fated voyage, and had taken the ship off-course, running it aground.

The wreck was never fully salvaged as heavy seas caused the ship to break up on the sea bed.

Now the ancient artefact will become a key attraction in The Tennent’s Story, a new £1m visitor centre experience, which opens to the public next week.

“To think that this is possibly the oldest bottle of beer in Scotland is something I find difficult to comprehend,” said Anderson, a member of the Geelong Skindivers Club in Australia.

“It has been on the other side of the world for so long, and now it’s home again 150 years later. It’s lovely to think that something I found is such a significant part of Scottish history. I’m thrilled to bits to see it here.

“The world was a very different place when it started out on its journey from Wellpark to Geelong. Melbourne was only a small town. Both it and Geelong, where I was born, were only just over 30 years old.

“This little bottle is a reminder of the historic connection between Australia and Scotland, too. I hope people enjoy seeing it and think about those days and the distance it travelled before I found it. It has come home and brought me with it.”

To mark the bottle’s homecoming, Tennent’s master brewers have gone back through old recipes in order to recreate a commemorative-edition run of the stout.

Just 1868 bottles of the “highly hopped” limited edition stout, which the original would have been in order to survive the long journey across the equator from Glasgow, will be produced.

Alan McGarrie, group brand director for Tennent’s, said: “Pre-dating Tennent’s Lager, which was first brewed in 1885, the stout is one of the oldest bottles of beer in Britain, returned to Wellpark by the diver who found it.

“Unlike the drunken captain who ran his ship aground close to Port Phillip Heads, Jim has ensured his historic cargo reached its final destination – by flying round the world to put it in place himself.”