After more than 130 years and some very late nights trying to decipher a dusty notebook, Australia's once lost beer was flowing from the taps of Melbourne's famous Chloe's Bar at the Young & Jackson pub yesterday, giving drinkers the chance to taste a colonial beer from the 1870s.

Such was the determination of the brewers from Brunswick's Thunder Road Brewing company to stick to the original recipe, which dates back to before Federation, they were forced to hunt down the same kind of hops used more than a century and a half ago and even used sugar from Mauritius, as was the custom of the time.

Phillip Withers with a bottle of Terry's Ale. Credit:Jason South

Initial impressions of the beer first created and brewed by Alfred Terry, a pioneer of Australia's beer industry who came to Melbourne in 1851, were of the beverage's incredibly fruity flavour, almost marmalade taste, and a bright vibrant copper tinge beneath a foamy creamy white head.

"I was pleasantly surprised," said Thunder Road senior brewer Marcus Cox who studied Mr Terry's original recipe and turned his sometimes half-scrawled shorthand notes into a proper recipe he could follow.