Divers have found the world's oldest drinkable beer at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

Three bottles of dark beer were found in an unidentified 18th-century wreck off Aland, an autonomous part of Finland.

They were discovered as the divers tried to salvage around 70 bottles of what is thought to be the world's oldest champagne, which were discovered last month.

One of the smaller bottles broke because the fragile glass had a crack in it and the divers and Kalmar Museum Senior Restorer Max Jahrehorn could immediately establish that it was beer.

He said: "One could see the beer inside and that it was beginning to foam and the foam started slowly in the beginning and it accelerated and it was something I didn't expect to see from a ship that has been on the bottom of the sea for 200 years.

"What I can say is that it's a dark beer because when the bottle broke I had to handle it and got the fluid on my fingers. It felt natural to taste the droplets. There was some bitterness mixed with sweetness but it was certainly a beer scent and taste. Perhaps not a beer I would buy since I prefer light beer. But it's totally fantastic."

Once the beer was transferred, the divers and conservationists were able to taste some of the brew using a straw. The water temperature along with the dark created the ideal storage environment and the pressure in the bottles meant that no salt water could seep in through the corks.