Friday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale, from 1954. It’s a beautifully illustrated ad, done by Dorothy Monet, a well known advertising artist of the day. It depicts an elegant dinner party, made all the more “special” by serving Ballantine Ale, of course, on a silver tray. There’s some great ad copy, referring to is as a “sociable beverage” and that it has the “time-honored flavor of all” which contains the “lightness and liveliness Americans prefer in their brewed beverages.” I’m convinced.
Archives for January 9, 2015
Patent No. 20140008367A1: Beverage Delivery Can
Today in 2014, just last year, US Patent 20140008367 A1 was issued, an invention of six people including Jim Koch, and assigned to the Boston Beer Co., for a “Beverage Delivery Can.” Here’s the Abstract:
A beverage delivery can may comprise various configurations. Such configurations may comprise various aperture shapes, sizes, and configurations and various shapes, textures, configurations, and dimensions of the lid and surface of the can. A beverage can may comprise various exterior shapes such as a tapered shape, a faceted shape, a pint glass shape and the like. In embodiments, the beverage can may comprise various types of nucleation devices. In embodiments, various external packaging may be used with one or more beverage delivery cans.
This not the can, at least not yet, that Boston Beer put their Samuel Adams Boston Lager and other beers in, a prototype for which is below. This can design more resembles their proprietary glass, so perhaps we’ll one day see this can on store shelves.
North Coast Doubles Their Square Footage
The local paper near Fort Bragg along the North Coast, the Ukiah Daily Journal is reporting that “North Coast Brewing Company expands,” adding a “[n]ew location will house brewery overflow.” North Coast Brewing apparently has leased a new warehouse, effectively doubling the size of their footprint, which “will increase North Coast Brewing’s storage by 10,000 feet, which is about equal to the brewery itself.” According to the Daily Journal:
18661 Old Coast Highway, in Fort Bragg, the former location of Mendocino Sports Club and Circus MECCA, will be a temporary storage facility for finished beer before being trucked to a their larger distribution point in Petaluma, according to Doug Moody, Senior Vice President at North Coast Brewing Company. The brewing company signed a 10-year lease for the property.
The move gives them greater flexibility in managing their product flow, much of which is immediately trucked to a storage facility in Petaluma because they’ve run out of room in Fort Bragg. The brewery, now in its 27th year — part of the class of ’88 — is, like many well-established breweries, growing by leaps and bounds and is hoping to remain in Fort Bragg. They’ve been trying to buy a part of an old mill site formerly owned by logging giant Georgia Pacific, but they haven’t yet been able to come to terms. If they do, you can plan on seeing a bigger single space that would “include a 200-seat performing arts center, restaurant and [North Coast] reestablishing brewery tours.” Even if it was approved tomorrow, it would likely take another three years to open the doors of a new brewery, but I for one would love to be there for the grand opening.
The current brewery in Fort Bragg.
Patent No. 640860A: Combination Beer Bottle & Glass
Today in 1900, US Patent 640860 A was issued, an invention of William Baum Jr., for a “Combination Beer Bottle and Glass.” There’s no Abstract, but it’s described in the application like this. “The invention consists of the combination, with a main body portion or bottle, of a top portion detachably mounted thereon and adapted to be used as a drinking cup or glass, and a base portion also detachable mounted on the body portion and adapted to act as a support for the detachable cup portion.” It seems like an interesting idea, perfect for travel since you wouldn’t have to pack a glass, but I don’t think it ever quite caught on.