IT may be undrinkable, but an unopened bottle of beer brewed 140 years ago for British sailors on an expedition to the North Pole has sold at auction for £3,300 (US$5,142).

    The bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale, brewed for an Arctic expedition led by Scottish mariner Sir George Nares in 1875, was discovered in a garage in Gobowen, Shropshire, Britain.

    It was sold to a private collector from Scotland for more than five times its £600 estimate at Trevanion & Dean auctioneers in Whitchurch on Monday.

    The bottle of beer which was brewed in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, bears a stamp saying “Arctic Expedition 1875.”

    It was initially intended to be drunk during Sir George’s mission to reach the North Pole to discover whether there was an open polar sea.

    But his ships, HMS Alert and HMS Discovery, were forced to turn back because of the freezing conditions and an outbreak of scurvy among the crew.

    The mission, which set sail from Portsmouth on May 29, 1875 with a crew of 120 men, failed, but they succeeded in mapping the coastlines of Greenland and Ellesmere Island.

    When brewed it would have cost about tuppence ha’penny — about one pound in today’s money.

    Although the bottle is still full to the brim the beer inside would probably be undrinkable.

    Speaking after the sale, Aaron Dean from Trevanion & Dean said, “It is amazing, the vendors were thrilled. They were in the room while the bidding was going on and they were so happy, which of course makes me happy.

    “It is hard to estimate a price with something like this. A chest of drawers you might see one of every week, but something like this does not come along often if at all.

    “It is a great historical object. We have all seen empty bottles from the 19th century but this bottle went all the way to the Arctic circle and came all the way back.”

    (SD-Agencies)