A new beer created using one of the world’s rarest and most valuable ales has been unveiled inside an ice sculpture in Edinburgh to celebrate 150 years since the legendary North Pole expedition it was originally brewed for.
Innis & Gunn 1875 Arctic Ale, brewed in partnership with historic English brewer Allsopp’s, was revealed by Innis & Gunn founder and master brewer Dougal Gunn Sharp at a special unveiling event held to mark the 150th anniversary of Sir George Nares’ Arctic voyage.
The new beer is a faithful recreation of Allsopp’s original 1875 Arctic Ale – a strong, nourishing beer brewed in Burton-upon-Trent to sustain British sailors battling temperatures as low as -40°C.
A surviving 150-year-old bottle of the original ale, bought by Sharp for £3,000 in 2015 and opened at Innis & Gunn’s Perth brewery earlier this year, was used to seed the new brew, giving the modern recreation a direct connection to the Victorian expedition, with every glass containing a drop of the original ale.
At the launch, the first bottles of Innis & Gunn 1875 Arctic Ale were revealed from within a specially commissioned block of crystal-clear ice, echoing the frozen seas the beer was first designed to endure.
Guests were invited to taste the beer at -10°C – drawn from the first cask to be tapped – experiencing it exactly as it would have been enjoyed by the sailors it once fuelled.
Innis & Gunn 1875 Arctic Ale, frozen into an ice sculpture at the first tasting of the new beer, at Edinburgh’s Polar Ice Bar. Credit: Innis & Gunn.
‘This beer has been 150 years in the making, and I have to say it’s an absolute knock out,’ Dougal said.
‘We’ve recreated Allsopp’s legendary Arctic Ale in celebration of the original brew and the extraordinary people it was made for, the explorers who carried it towards the North Pole.
‘Opening that original bottle and using it to seed our new brew was one of the most nerve-racking but exciting moments of my brewing career.
‘You never quite know how an experiment like this will turn out, but I genuinely believe we’ve done the skill that went into it justice.
‘Innis & Gunn 1875 Arctic Ale is absolutely worth opening the bottle for – it’s one of the best beers we’ve ever made – and for those lucky enough to try it, it’s as close as you’ll ever get to tasting a piece of history.
‘This project was about honouring Arctic Ale on its 150th anniversary and sharing an incredible story from brewing and maritime history with people today. We wanted to bring this lost beer back to life, not lock it away in a cupboard.’
A bottle of Alsopp’s Arctic Ale, from 1875. Credit: Elaine Livingstone.
This new 1875 Arctic Ale has been brewed using a recipe close to the original Allsopp’s brew and authentic period ingredients, resulting in a rich, robust beer in the spirit of the Victorian original.
Like its predecessor, it is strong, warming and designed to be sipped and savoured.
Allsopp’s Arctic Ale was first brewed in the mid-19th century as a ‘strong and nutritive’ beer to fuel British expeditions to the Arctic.
With an alcohol strength of around 9% and around six times the calorie content of a modern beer, it was designed to resist freezing while nourishing crews in brutal conditions.
Brewing records from the period describe it as thick, dark and ‘suggestive of old Madeira’, so dense it had to be lifted from the copper in buckets.
The beer accompanied several major Arctic missions, including the 1875 British Arctic Expedition led by Sir George Nares, which aimed to reach the North Pole.
Though the voyages ended in hardship and retreat, the beer brewed for them gained almost mythical status among collectors. Only a handful of bottles are believed to survive.
Sharp acquired his 1875 bottle at auction more than a decade ago, after it was discovered in a Shropshire garage.
Earlier this year, he opened it for the first time at Innis & Gunn’s Perth brewery alongside Jamie Allsopp.
The beer, described at the time as ‘astonishingly well preserved’, was partially used to seed the new Innis & Gunn 1875 Arctic Ale, with the remainder kept for archive and research.
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