Tuesday’s ad is for Miller High Life, from 1960. In this ad, one of a series featuring a nearly black and white ad, with only the beer in color, and the same man engaged in various activities. This time, he’s watching the sport of Curling. It originated in Scotland in the 16th century and spread to wherever Scottish people settled, like New Zealand or Canada. It looks the curling team he’s watching is wearing formal military uniforms, with loads of medals on their jackets. And not a few, but there are so many they must be weighing them down with the extra weight.
Archives for September 13, 2016
Roald Dahl’s The Twits
Today is the birthday of curmudgeonly children’s writer Roald Dahl (September 13, 1916-November 23, 1990).
[He] was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and fighter pilot. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.
Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, Dahl served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence officer, rising to the rank of acting wing commander. He rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults and he became one of the world’s best-selling authors. He has been referred to as “one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century.” His awards for contribution to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the British Book Awards’ Children’s Author of the Year in 1990. In 2008, The Times placed Dahl 16th on its list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.”
Dahl’s short stories are known for their unexpected endings and his children’s books for their unsentimental, macabre, often darkly comic mood, featuring villainous adult enemies of the child characters. His books champion the kind-hearted, and feature an underlying warm sentiment.[10][11] Dahl’s works for children include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine. His adult works include Tales of the Unexpected.
One of his less well-known books was The Twits. “The idea of The Twits was triggered by Dahl’s desire to ‘do something against beards,’ because he had an acute hatred of them. The first sentence of the story is, ‘What a lot of hairy-faced men there are around nowadays!'”
Even though it was written in 1979, and published the following year, just like today hipsters with beards drank lots of beer, if Mr. Twit is any example. One chapter, “The Glass Eye,” involves a trick his wife played on him with his beer.
Patent No. WO2012122019A1: Barley Cultivar Moravian 115
Today in 2012, US Patent WO 2012122019 A1 was issued, an invention of Dennis Dolan, assigned to MillerCoors, for his “Barley Cultivar Moravian 115.”
Moravian barley in Colorado.
Here’s the Abstract:
A barley cultivar, designated MV115, is disclosed. MV115 is a high yield, lodging resistant cultivar with exceptional malting characteristics particularly useful in the brewing industry. The disclosure relates to seeds, plants, and to methods for producing a barley plant produced by crossing barley cultivar MV115 with itself or another barley variety. Methods for producing a barley plant containing in its genetic material one or more transgenes are disclosed. Barley varieties or breeding varieties, plant parts, methods for producing other barley varieties, lines or plant parts, and to the barley plants, varieties, and their parts derived from the use of those methods are disclosed. The disclosure further relates to hybrid barley seeds and plants produced by crossing bariey cultivar MV115 with another barley cultivar. Methods for developing other barley varieties or breeding lines derived from variety MV115 including cell and tissue culture, haploid systems, mutagenesis, and transgenic derived lines are disclosed.
Last year, I visited Coors’ barley fields in a valley in Colorado, where local farmers grow Moravian barley for them.
Ballantine’s Literary Ads: J.B. Priestley
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 J.B. Priestley, who’s best known novel was probably The Good Companions, though I think he’s more well-known in Great Britain than in the U.S. His ad ran in 1952.
Today is the birthday of John Boynton Priestley, better known as J.B. Priestley (September 13, 1894–August 14, 1984), who “was an English novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, social commentator, man of letters and broadcaster. Many of his plays are structured around a time slip, and he went on to develop a new theory of time, with different dimensions that link past, present and future.”
His piece for Ballantine was done in the form of essentially listing all of the things he likes about the beer, point by point:
This is what I like, first of all, about Ballantine Ale: It’s a wonderful thirst-quencher. It passes smoothly over the palate, creating at once a fine feeling of refreshment.
At the same time, because it’s got body and flavor, it’s something a man can offer another man when the two of you begin to expand in talk, and perhaps boast a little.
Ballantine Ale is what I like to call “a clean drink.” You take another glass for the sheer pleasure of drinking it, and not because the first glass has failed to fulfill its promises and left you still feeling thirsty.
Finally, I like my Ballantine cold, but not too cold, please. Deep chilling, to my taste, tends to destroy the flavor. And the flavor’s worth keeping.
Patent No. EP0070570B1: Yeast Strain For Use In Brewing
Today in 1989, US Patent EP 0070570 B1 was issued, an invention of George Stewart Graham, Edmund Goring Thomas and Russell Ingeborg, assigned to the Labatt Brewing Company, for their “Yeast Strain For Use in Brewing.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
This invention relates to a novel yeast strain suitable for use in the brewing of beer and to a method of preparing the same.
In the brewing of beer, i.e. ale and lager, ale yeast strains (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) are traditionally top-cropping strains and lager yeast strains (Saccharomyces uvarum (carlsbergensis)) are bottom-cropping strains. That is, when the attenuation of the wort, which may be broadly defined as the conversion of fermentable substrate to alcohol, has attained a certain level, the discrete yeast cells of most ale strains adhere or aggregate to an extent that, adsorbed to bubbles of carbon dioxide, they will rise to the surface under quiescent conditions (e.g. when the medium is not agitated) where they are “cropped” by being skimmed off. In the case of lager strains, the aggregated cells are not adsorbed to bubbles of carbon dioxide and settle out of suspension to the bottom of the vessel where they are “cropped” by various standard methods.
One of the limitations of the known ale yeast strains is that they do not function satisfactorily in worts having plato values (°P) higher than about 14.5°P and values of only about 9°P to 12°P are usually required. The plato value (°P) is defined as the weight of dissolved solids, expressed as a percentage, in water at 15.6°C. Generally, the higher the plato value at which a yeast strain will function, the greater is the conversion of fermentable substrate to alcohol for a given volume of wort. Consequently, the resultant fermentation product would be one of higher than usually desired final alcohol content and would generally be diluted before packaging. Since the dilution to obtain a standard, commercially acceptable product would occur at the end of the brewing process, the overall throughput of such a brewing system would be substantially increased over a conventional system. Furthermore, beers produced from such high plato worts generally exhibit improved colloidal haze and flavour stability.
In view of the economic advantages possible in fermenting worts of higher plato values, there has been a substantial amount of research carried out in the hope of obtaining a yeast strain which will function at such higher plato values in the range of about 16°P to 18°P, i.e. a yeast strain which will remain in the body of the wort until substantial or total conversion of the fermentable sugars to alcohol atthe higher Plato values has occurred. As an alternative, attempts have been made to maintain known yeast strains in the body of the wort by mechanical means, such as continuous stirring, in the hope thatthe yeast would continue to function if maintained in contact with the wort. However, this has proved to be inefficient and in many cases more expensive because of the extra energy required to operate such mechanical means. Furthermore, many such attempts have been frustrated by difficulties of product flavour match with present commercially acceptable standards.
The inventors of this invention have now discovered a yeast strain which is an ale yeast (species Saccharomyces cerevisiae) that not only functions at high plato values, e.g. up to about 18°P, but also flocculates to the bottom of the fermenting vessel when conversion or attenuation has been substantially completed (the latter feature, as noted above, is usually characteristic of a lager strain rather than an ale strain).
The present novel organism was found to be a component of a mixture of ale yeasts maintained by the assignee. The organism was isolated and biologically pure cultures thereof were produced by techniques considered standard by those skilled in the art and can be obtained upon request from the permanent collection of the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (termed “NCYC” herein), Food Research Institute, Norwich, Norfolk, England. The accession number of the organism in this repository is NCYC No. 962.
Thus, according to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a brewing process wherein a malt wort is prepared; fermented with brewers’ yeast; and, following completion of the fermentation, finished to the desired alcoholic brewery beverage; the improvement comprising fermenting said wort having a Plato value of about 14.5 or greater with a strain of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae brewers’ yeast having the NCYC No. 962.
In another aspect the invention provides a brewing process for producing ale, wherein a hopped, 30% corn grit adjunct wort is prepared having a Plato value of from about 16°P to 18°P; fermented at a temperature of about 21°C for about 3 to 5 days with a species of Saccharomyces cerevisiae brewers’ yeast; and, following completion of the fermentation, finished to the desired ale; the improvement comprising fermenting said wort with a strain of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae brewers’ yeast having the NCYC No. 962.
In a further aspect the invention provides a biologically pure culture of a brewers’ yeast strain of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae having the NCYC No. 962, said strain having the ability to ferment high Plato value worts of 14.5 or greater and the ability of flocculate to the bottom of the fermentation vessel when attenuation is substantially complete.
In a further aspect of the invention provides a method of manufacturing a novel brewers’ yeast strain, wherein a yeast strain is propagated in an oxygenated nutrient medium, the improvement comprising propagating a biologically pure culture of a yeast strain of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae having the NCYC No. 962.
The advantage of the yeast strain of the present invention (referred to herein as strain 962 for the sake of convenience) is that it has both bottom-cropping characteristics as well as the ability to ferment high specific gravity worts. The bottom-cropping characteristic is advantageous because of increased utilization in the brewing industry of large conical-based vessels for fermenting the wort, and bottom-cropping is especially facile in such vessels. Thus strain 962 is particularly well adapted for use with continuous brewing techniques as well as batch-wise brewing.
The fact that strain 962 can ferment worts having high plato values is economically advantageous in that use of such worts allows dilution with water at a much later stage in the processing, generally prior to packaging. By reducing the amount of water required in the majority of process stages, increasing production demands can be met without the expansion of existing brewing, fermenting and storage facilities and the overall throughput of an existing brewery system can be substantially increased by the use of strain 962. Consequently, the brewing process can be carried out at a reduced overall cost, including a reduced energy cost.
Thus, while a number of bottom-cropping ale strains are known, the dual characteristics of bottom-cropping and the ability to ferment which gravity worts makes strain 962 of the present invention especially useful in the brewing of ale.
Patent No. 482474A: Beer Faucet
Today in 1892, US Patent 482474 A was issued, an invention of Frank Anthony Frumviller, for his “Beer Faucet.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
This invention relates to improvements in beer-faucets, the objects in view being to provide a faucet of cheap and simple construction adapted to be applied to any of the ordinary bung-faucets, and so constructed as to be applied or removed to the same without removing the bung or rod, and thus obviating any change of pressure upon the beer or permitting it to become fiat by reason of such application or removal, wherebyI am enabled to draw the beer either at the point of location of the keg or at some distant point.
Patent No. WO2007102850A1: Gluten-Free Beer And Method For Making The Same
Today in 2007, US Patent WO 2007102850 A1 was issued, an invention of Russell J. Klisch, assigned to the Lakefront Brewery, for his “Gluten-Free Beer and Method For Making the Same.” Lakefront Brewery developed this patented for their beer New Grist. Here’s the Abstract:
A gluten-free beer derived from fermentable sugars obtained from an enzymatic reaction with gluten-free cereals and grains, and a method of making a gluten-free beer that includes dissolving enzyme-produced fermentable sugars derived from gluten-free cereals and grains in water to produce an aqueous solution, adding a yeast nutrient, a protein coagulant and hops to the aqueous solution to form an aqueous brew, and fermenting the aqueous brew by the addition of yeast to produce a gluten-free beer.