Sunday’s ad is entitled Showing Off the New Kitchen, and the illustration was done in 1955 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #106 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, they almost look like they could be twin sisters. A woman is showing off her new kitchen to another woman, while their husbands ignore the kitchen, beers in hand, and look as if they’re talking about anything else. It’s weird to see the center island made of brick.
Archives for July 17, 2016
Patent No. 3044879A: Anactinic Malt Product And Hop Extract Therefor
Today in 1962, US Patent 3044879 A was issued, an invention of William C. Herwig, Thomas L. Kissel, and Gilbert H. Koch, assigned to Miller Brewing, for his “Anactinic Malt Product and Hop Extract Therefor.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
This invention relates to manufacture of anactinic malt beverages such as beer and ale, and to intermediate products.
It is well known that beer and ale and similar malt beverages are produced from water, barley malt, adjuncts and hops. The malt and adjuncts furnish the carbohydrates and other growth essentials which make up the wort. This wort, boiled with hops, in turn forms the basic substance for fermentation in the fermenting tanks. The hops give the characteristic bitter flavor and pleasant aroma to the beer. They assist in preserving the beer and improve its foam holding capacity.
Unfortunately, beer and ale and other similar malt beverages are not stable to light. Light of both visible and-invisible wave lengths affects them adversely producing actinic damage in the form of a characteristic skunky odor. Such a beer is commonly known as light struck. The actinism is caused by chemical changes, producing compounds probably mercaptans in nature. Tests show that the olfactory threshold level of odoriferous compounds of this character is very low, in the range of a few parts per billion. This shows clearly the acute nature of the problem. 7 Many efforts have been made in the past to overcome this difficulty. Much time has been expended on packaging of beer and ale to exclude light. Colored bottles have been used and opaque packages are common. It is not uncommon to label them Do Not Expose to Light.
To compete with modern day merchandising, a malt beverage has to be removed from the case and put on the shelf, or at least a portion of the container is exposed for easy vision and access. Modern reach-in coolers have clear glass windows and fluorescent lights which aggravate the problems. Even canned beer or keg beer can be adversely affected by sunlight if, as is usually the’ case, it is drunk from a glass. glass to direct sunlight for a short a time as a few minutes will result in the impairment of the taste and production of the characteristic skunky odor. Beer at picnics and sporting events is often exposed for hours to direct sunlight. In such cases, the deleterious effects can be very marked.
q We have discovered a way to overcome the hazard of product exposure to light which forms the basis of our invention, and have thereby achieved a substantially anactinic malt beverage. The term anactinic is intended The exposure of beer in the 3,044,879 Patented July 17, 1962 bitterness in the finished product, but eliminate the photoactive elements thereof.
A still further object of the, present invention is to provide a method of treating hop extract in the presence of a reducing agent to provide a concentrated product having particular application in malt beverages production, whereby its use will not affect the desired characteristics of the beverage, but will eliminate photoactive elements therein.
The soft resins and oils, which are contained in the glands produced on the hops and known as lupulin glands, are valuable constituents of the hops as used ,in the brewing process. The soft resins consist principally of (a) the alpha acids, (b) the beta acids, and (c) the uncharacterized soft resins. The alpha acids are known as humulones and the beta acids are known as lupulones. The alpha acids are the source of antiseptic and bitter substances in beer. The beta acids or lupulones have low solubility in kettle wort and beer, thus do not appreciably enter into the brewing process.
It is known that chemical changes are made in the humulones during brewing resulting in the compounds known :as isohumulones, i.e. isohumulone, isocohumwlone, isoadhurnulone, and isoprehumulone. These isocompounds are formed in the kettle during the boiling stage of the brewing process, and we have discovered that these compounds are the ones that cause the beer to become sensitive to light in the presence of sulfhydryl comhumulone, and prehumulone, is isomerized to the corresponding isohumulones. It is known that during the isomerization of the humulones to isohumulones, a new side chain is formed which now contains a carbonyl group.
It is these isohumulones-isohumulone, isocohumuloue isoadhumulone, and isoprehumulone which we have found to be involved in the photochemical reaction with sulfhydryl compounds to produce the ‘actinic damage resulting in the characteristic light struck aroma.
to succinctly describe a beverage which will not be subject to actinic damage. The word is herein coined and is derived from the word -actinic plus the prefix an, meaning not. This is the Greek equivalent to the Latin in and consists of alpha privative plus nu movable.
We have found that three factors are necessary for the reaction causing malt beverages. to become light struck. They are photo energy in the wave length region of 1,000 to 10,000 angstroms, a sulfhydryl bearing compound, and a chemical component derived from the raw materials, hops, during the brewing process.
The primary object of the invention is to provide a hop extract and malt beverage that is stable to light and will not produce unpleasant olfactory characteristics.
A further object of the invention is to so treat the hops in malt beverages so as to retain the aroma, bouquet and We are of the belief that when the isohumulones are group can be altered by means of reduction to a secondary alcohol, and by such alternation, be prevented from reacting with the sulfhydryl groups normally present in beer components.
Ballantine’s Literary Ads: Erle Stanley Gardner
Between 1951 and 1953, P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company, or simply Ballentine Beer, created a series of ads with at least thirteen different writers. They asked each one “How would you put a glass of Ballantine Ale into words?” Each author wrote a page that included reference to their beer, and in most cases not subtly. One of them was Erle Stanley Gardner, whose most well-known character was Perry Mason.
Today is the birthday of Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889–March 11, 1970). He “was an American lawyer and author. Though best known for the Perry Mason series of detective stories, he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces, as well as a series of non-fiction books, mostly narrations of his travels through Baja California and other regions in Mexico.” His Ballantine ad ran in 1952.
His piece for Ballantine was done in the form of a Perry Mason script, written on his personal stationary from his home in Temecula, California:
If you are calling upon me to put a glass of Ballantine Ale into words, I’m inclined to retain Perry Mason to state the case for me:
Mr. Mason:- “We offer in evidence this green bottle containing an amber beverage, bearing the famous three-ring label.
“We propose to prove that the content of this bottle is accepted as the nation’s outstanding ale, from the standpoint of purity, body and flavor.
“In fact, your Honor, we contend that Ballantine Ale begins where other brews leave off! And the whole country knows it.”
- The District Attorney:
- “I object. How can you prove that the whole country knows it?”
- Mr. Mason:
- “That fact already has been proved, your Honor. Ballantine Ale is America’s largest-selling ale … outsells any other 4 to 1!
“And, if the Court please, may I suggest that the Court try a glass of Ballantine Ale? And when you do, may it please the Court!”
At this point, Mr. Mason and I rest our case.
This one is definitely one of the cheesier ones in the series. I’ll feature the rest on their respective authors’ birthdays throughout the year.
Patent No. 523274A: Apparatus For Collecting Dripping From Beer Faucets And Returning Same To Kegs Under Gas Pressure
Today in 1894, US Patent 523274 A was issued, an invention of Harry Genovar, for his “Apparatus for Collecting Dripping from Beer Faucets and Returning Same to Kegs Under Gas Pressure.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
The object of my invention is to provide means whereby the drippings and waste from beer faucets and other sources may be easily and quickly returned to the keg, without loss of gas from the latter and Without impairing the quality of the beer.
In retailing beer by the glass, it is usually drawn directly from the keg through pipes which traverse a refrigerating chamber, carbonic acid gas being supplied to the keg at a substantially uniform pressure. The presence of large quantities of foam, as the beer comes from the faucet, and the necessity of running off the larger part of the foam, entails a considerable waste, as the beer into which this foam is resolved soon parts. with its gas and becomes stale.
It is the purpose of my invention to provide means whereby this waste may be entirely avoided without involving more than an extremely moderate expense for apparatus which may be easily operated by any person with a small expenditure of time and labor.
The invention consists in the several novel features of construction and new combinations of parts hereinafter fully explained and then particularly pointed out and defined in the claims which follow this specification.