Have a Blowenbrau.
A charred bottle of beer that survived the explosion of the Hindenburg will be auctioned off this month for an estimated $7,500.
Although its contents are undrinkable, the unopened bottle of Lowenbrau would be the most expensive brew ever sold.
Leroy Smith, a New Jersey firefighter found the beer along with a pitcher shortly after the airship burst into flame over Lakehurst in 1937, killing 38.
Smith buried six bottles and the pitcher after police sealed off the scene of the wreckage. He returned later to retrieve the souvenirs.
He gave one bottle each to five firefighter friends and kept one bottle and the pitcher.
“The handle on the pitcher has snapped away from the jug due to it being exposed to the fierce heat of the fire,” said Andrew Aldridge, of British auction house Henry Aldridge & Sons.
“It is heavily burnt, and you can see the soot damage to it.”
The intense heat of the explosion caused much of the beer inside the bottle to evaporate, he said.
“The label peeled off in the fire, but remarkably, for the most part, it is still intact,” Aldridge said.
“But you wouldn’t want to drink it, it is probably quite putrid to taste.”
The relics are being sold by Smith’s niece, Rhea Longstreet, to whom he gave the bottle and jug in 1966.
“While cleaning up, uncle Roy came upon a pitcher and six bottles of Lowenbrau beer,” she said. “He buried them in the field nearby, and when they were sent home, he went back and retrieved all the items.”
In 1977, another one of the bottles was returned to Smith, and he sent it to the brewery.
“We are very excited about how well the label has been preserved despite the circumstances it has been through,” the company said in a thank-you letter. “The bottle will be displayed in our showroom.”
The brewery’s director said at the time that the beer could not be drunk as beer had a shelf life of six months.
The auction will take place on Saturday.