A 162 year-old bottle of Guinness rescued from a shipwreck is being analysed by brewing experts to see if the beer can be brought back to life. If successful, it would give a fascinating insight in to how stout tasted in the 19th century.

The beer was discovered by Stefan Panis, a Belgian diver and deep-sea photographer. He investigated the wreck of the Mindoro that sunk in 1864 following a collision with another vessel off the English coast near Dover.

He found a crate of Guinness in the wreck and brought one bottle to the surface that he showed to a fellow diver and researcher Pawel Truszynski.

Truszynski said: “We were holding a flawlessly sealed time capsule of liquid history.” Further bottles will be rescued. It’s thought that while the beer may not be drinkable it may be possible to isolate some yeast cells that could still be active after 162 years and have been preserved by the cold sea water.

Panis sent samples of the bottle to the brewing faculty at Leuven University in Belgium where microbiologist Kevin Verstrepen will analyse the DNA of the beer and attempt to produce a yeast culture. If he’s successful then it will be possible to use the yeast to brew a version of Guinness stout, using an original recipe from Victorian times.

As well as Leuven University, Guinness in Dublin has been informed of the discovery and the work going into the revival.

A spokesman for Diageo, the international drinks group that owns Guinness, said: “Discoveries like this provide a fascinating window into our past and help to build a deeper understanding of our heritage.”

The bottle is embossed with Guinness Extra Stout London. It’s thought the beer would be around 5.4 per cent alcohol and, despite the use of London, would have been brewed at St. James’s Gate in Dublin where Arthur Guinness opened his brewery in 1759.

The beer became so popular in Britain that Guinness sent beer in bulk to be bottled under contract by brewers in London, Bristol and other towns and cities.

One of the brewers was Combe that later became part of the major London group Watney Combe Reid. Combe was based in Old Brewer’s Yard in Covent Garden, now the site of the new Guinness Open Gate visitor centre that includes a 20,000 barrel brewery.

A similar recreation took place in 1988 when deep sea divers from the City of London Polytechnic investigated the wreck of a ship that had sunk in the English Channel in 1825. They brought to the surface several bottles of porter that were handed to Dr Keith Thomas who ran the Brewers’ Laboratory – Brewlab for short – at the polytechnic. It runs courses for brewers and home brewers.

Porter was stout – in the 18th and 19th centuries the strongest version was known as stout porter, later shortened to just stout.

The porter given to Dr Thomas was undrinkable as it had been contaminated by sea water, but he was able to isolate a few living yeast cells from one bottle. He cultured them in his laboratory and, with the help of the London brewer Whitbread, he was able to track down an 1850s recipe for porter.

The beer that resulted was called Flag Porter. It was brewed at Elgood’s brewery in Cambridgeshire and then at the Darwin brewery in Sunderland. Brewlab also moved and became a department of Sunderland University.

Flag Porter is no longer brewed, which is disappointing as it would be fascinating to taste it alongside a recreation of Guinness Extra Stout. If the Guinness brew does go ahead, Open Gate in Covent Garden, on the site of a major porter and stout brewery in the 18th and 19th centuries, would be the ideal place for the launch.