The world's oldest drinkable bottles of beer are believed to have been discovered at the same Baltic Sea site where Swedish divers discovered some 200-year-old bottles of champagne in July.

Work began this week to recover around 70 bottles of champagne from the shipwreck, which was initially thought to come from the cellars of Veuve Clicquot.

Now the divers have made another surprising find - 200-year-old dark beer, which like the bubbly is still in a drinkable condition.

"We believe these are by far the world's oldest bottles of beer," said Rainer Juslin, a spokesman for the Finnish province of Aaland, which legally owns the contents of the shipwreck.

Although the champagne recovered from the wreck was first thought to be Veuve Clicquot due to the remnants of an anchor logo on some of the corks, the producer last month confirmed that the wine is in fact from the Juglar house.