Bottle of 140-year-old Arctic Ale beer auctioned

A 140-year-old bottle of ale, made specifically for a British arctic expedition, is due to be auctioned after being found unopened in a garage.
The bottle, Allsopp's Arctic Ale, was brewed in Burton-upon-Trent for the 1875 expedition led by Sir George Nares in an attempt to reach the North Pole. The expedition ended in failure after poor equipment and scurvy forced the explorers to retreat.
The bottle was found in a box in the garage of a house in Gobowen, Shropshire, though nobody knows how it got there. A spokesperson for auctioneers Trevanion and Dean said: "We can only assume this bottle was surplus stock that was brought back to England. The vendors inherited it through their family."
The bottle is expected to fetch between £400 and £600 when it is auctioned on June 13.
The auction house spokesperson said: "I was working through boxes when I spotted the top of this bottle sticking out of one of them. It looked interesting so I took a closer look, and, low and behold, there on the cap were the words Allsopp's Arctic Ale, then embossed on the seal was 'Arctic Expedition 1875'.
"What's incredible is that this bottle of beer made it all the way to the Arctic and all the way back again without being drunk."
This isn't the first time a bottle of Allsopp's Arctic Ale has been auctioned.
In 2007 an 1852 bottle, brewed specifically for Sir Edward Belcher's Arctic Expedition, was posted on eBay with a spelling mistake. It was listed as "Allsop's Arctic Ale" and was sold for $304 (£197).