A bottle of Guinness beer estimated to be 162 years old was recently recovered from the sea floor near Dover, Kent, where the ship Mindoro sank in 1864. The vessel went down following a collision, and the cargo it carried has remained underwater since the mid-19th century.

The find was made by Stefan Panis, a Belgian underwater photographer and diver with more than four decades of experience. Alongside a colleague, Panis located a crate containing the vintage bottles during a dive at the wreck site. Neither diver immediately realized the significance of the discovery until they surfaced and cleaned one of the bottles.

Upon identifying the find, Panis reached out to Guinness to report the recovery. He suggested that additional crates may still be intact at the site, hinting at the potential for further salvage operations.

Samples from the bottles have been forwarded to researchers at KU Leuven University in Belgium. The scientific team aims to analyze the contents to understand the beverage’s composition and how its flavor might have evolved over the past century and a half. There is also interest in attempting to recreate the original taste of the 1864 Guinness through modern brewing methods and technology.

The Mindoro shipwreck serves as a time capsule providing unique insight into historical brewing practices and preservation. Continued study of the bottles may offer valuable information about 19th-century production and storage techniques used by Guinness, as well as broader knowledge about aging processes in alcoholic beverages submerged for long periods.