Last weekend, beer writer, Martyn Cornell, wrote about his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to taste from a 1875 bottle of the historied Allsopp’s Arctic Ale. He writes…
One indisputably legendary beer is Allsopp’s Arctic Ale, the powerful, rich Burton Ale, original gravity 1130, north of 11 per cent alcohol, brewed in Victorian times specifically for expeditions to the Arctic Circle by British explorers. There are a very few bottles left of the Arctic Ale brewed for the expedition under Sir George Nares which set out in 1875 to reach the North Pole. And this week I drank some.
The post, in itself, makes for an interesting read though it took a strange turn on Thursday in the comments section when some Burton historical folks demanded to know how the bottle was procured.
After speaking with my associates on this matter , we would like to be informed as to who acquired this bottle As no one else should have any , Chris had two , one which he opened to anaylize , the other is in his collection , the others are under lock and key .Only one other person acquired a few illegally and these should all have been returned to the care of the three of us in whos care they will be , in the vaults at NBC THIS PERSON IS KNOWN BY ALL SIGNATURES . legal matters may be enforced by the owner , if it was attained illegally .As it is Burton upon Trent Brewing history . We signed a certificate [12] members in total,and we each hold a copy to say no one can use the recipe, sell, open, or hold tasting sessions after the last time on June 1st . ALL.twelve of us . will be looking forwards to your reply on this matter as we are quite concerned
What bizarre use of punctuation!
Gifter, Chris Bowen, responded to the comment re-iterating what was already clearly laid out in the post, that the bottle came from his expedition to the Arctic. Bowen’s expedition is documented on his website, Arctic Alchemy. And the drama appears to be over, at least for now.