A group of Australian scientists claim they have pulled off a world first by reviving the yeast of a 220-year-old beer salvaged from a shipwreck.

Key points: Beer brewers yeasts found in bottles from 1797 shipwreck in Bass Strait

Beer brewers yeasts found in bottles from 1797 shipwreck in Bass Strait Scientists revive yeasts from samples found in bottles

Scientists revive yeasts from samples found in bottles Old English ale brewed using revived yeasts from samples, called Preservation Ale

Upon reaching the Great Southern Land in 1797, the Sydney Cove — one of the first commercial trading ships to ever attempt the journey to the newly formed colony of Sydney — sprang a leak and ran aground on tiny Preservation Island in Bass Strait.

Many of the crew were rescued by longboat but some of the cargo remained buried at sea in the sunken ship, including some of Sydney's precious beer supply.

For almost two centuries the beer sat forgotten, sealed beneath a layer of sand and seagrass, conditions that preserved the organic material unusually well until it was salvaged in 1990.

"It virtually sealed everything in, there was no oxygen getting in and it was completely intact," said marine archaeologist Mike Nash, who salvaged the wreck.

Treasures from the wreck are the star attraction at the Queen Victoria museum in Launceston in Tasmania's north.

When chemist-turned-conservator David Thurrowgood found the beer bottles in the museum's storage area when he began working at the museum 18 months ago, he was surprised to find one still had liquid inside.

It sparked a wild imagining — could there be real yeast in there?

"At that point I was getting really excited," Mr Thurrowgood told Catalyst.

"That gave us a chance to possibly have access to the oldest beer in the world. I thought we might be able to culture that yeast and recreate beer that hasn't been on the planet for 220 years."

In addition to the unopened bottle, two samples from another bottle which had been carefully decanted at the time of the wreck's salvage, were found in separate parts of the museum.

As clean water was scarce, soldiers and sailors at the time of the shipwreck were encouraged to drink beer instead. ( Catalyst )

Bringing the beer back to life

Brimming with optimism, in November 2015 the conservator contacted several top scientists and got an abrupt reality check.

"I didn't think there was any chance it was ever going to work," said yeast specialist Anthony Borneman, from the Australian Wine Research Institute.

"But the opportunity was too good to pass up, to not try. I couldn't bear it if we said no and someone else tried it and it worked."

No-one in the world has ever reliably recovered live yeast from a beer bottle 220 years old, and some experts doubt beer yeasts survive longer than 10 years.

Despite this, a syringe sample from the one precious unopened bottle was taken in a highly sterilised room.

But the hopes of Dr Borneman and colleague Simon Dillon faded when the sample returned no results.

Simon Dillon makes beer using the shipwreck yeast extract with Catalyst's Dr Jonica Newby. ( Catalyst )

"The liquid that was in that bottle wasn't actually beer," said Professor Alan Cooper, the director for the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA.

"Maybe castor oil, maybe something else, but not beer."

But the two samples from the Tasmanian wreck that were decanted 20 years ago did come to life.

"My first reaction, and I think Simon's too, was, 'do it again'," Dr Borneman said.

"So that was the first thing we did, we repeated it to make sure that the same two grew if we tried to culture them again.

"And then I think after the second time, the reaction was, 'do it again'."

A detailed DNA analysis of the yeasts was undertaken to find out if the yeasts were present because of contamination.

The brewer's yeast brettanomyces was found. It is not used in modern commercial brewing, but was used everywhere in old-style brewing.

Also present was the brewer's yeast Saccharomyces, but not like it had ever been seen before. The yeast was a hybrid that sat closest on the family tree to Trappist ale, made by monks in Belgium.

Scientists divided over yeast

Professor Cooper does not believe contamination of the sample can be ruled out without clean room evidence.

"The problem is we've got a 20-year black hole between when the bottle was originally opened, decanted, then moved," he told Catalyst.

"Somewhere in that 20-year window anything could have happened."

But Dr Borneman and Mr Thurrowgood struggle with the hypothesis that it was contamination.

"We think we've got a yeast that hasn't been seen for at least 220 years," Mr Thurrowgood said.

Dr Borneman said there were too many coincidences for it to be a contamination.

Preservation Ale from Preservation Island. ( Catalyst )

"We've got two samples, the same bottle, both decanted and then kept apart," he said.

"So either there was a very specific contamination event 20 years ago when they decanted it into the two samples, both samples got equally contaminated with our hybrid Saccharomyces strain and our beer-brewing Brettanomyces strains … then they were locked away for 20 years and both stayed viable. Or, the strains were in the bottle."

They all agree they need to go back to the wreck, dig deeper, salvage more bottles, and send them straight to the lab.

In the meantime, a homebrew using the yeast has been made based on a common English ale recipe.

The beer has been named Preservation Ale by Mr Thurrowgood, after Preservation Island, and is quite possibly a revival of the world's oldest beer.

Watch how the story of adventure, misadventure, salvage, and science unfolded on Catalyst tonight at 8pm on ABC TV.