600 bottles of beer found in Scarborough castle

During the investigation of the premises of the English Scarborough Castle in the County of Yorkshire, old beer bottles were found. More than 600 containers were located on one of the stairs that leads to the basement. Archaeologists immediately assumed that ginger beer was probably inside.

The contents of the bottles actually turned out to be an alcoholic drink containing 3% alcohol. The acidity of the liquid was 5.07 pH, and the lead content exceeds the permissible norm of 0.01 mg/l and reaches 0.13 mg/l – this level is dangerous for the human body. According to reports from the West Yorkshire archaeological survey, beer is produced by several businesses. Most of the bottles belong to the J. E. Richardson brewery of Leeds. All of them were made in the second half of the XIX century.

The discovery will contribute to the study of Victorian Yorkshire. However, historians have yet to learn how the bottles got into the castle.