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Beer Birthday: Bob Uecker

January 26, 2020 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Today is the 86th birthday of Bob Uecker, who is an “American former Major League Baseball player and current sportscaster, comedian, and actor. Facetiously dubbed ‘Mr. Baseball’ by TV talk show host Johnny Carson, Uecker has served as a play-by-play announcer for Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcasts since 1971. He was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame with its 2003 Ford C. Frick Award in recognition of his broadcasting career.” But he is best-remembered, beerwise, for his humorous commercials in the 1980s for Miller Lite beer.

This is his biography, from his Wikipedia page:

Though he has sometimes joked that he was born on an oleo run to Illinois, Uecker was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He grew up watching the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers at Borchert Field. He signed a professional contract with his hometown Milwaukee Braves in 1956 and made his Major League Baseball debut as a catcher with the club in 1962. A below-average hitter, he finished with a career batting average of .200. He was generally considered to be a sound defensive player and committed very few errors in his Major League career as a catcher, completing his career with a fielding percentage of .981. However, in 1967, despite playing only 59 games, he led the league in passed balls and is still on the top 10 list for most passed balls in a season. At least a partial explanation is that he spent a good deal of the season catching knuckleballer Phil Niekro. He often joked that the best way to catch a knuckleball was to wait until it stopped rolling and pick it up. Uecker also played for the St. Louis Cardinals (and was a member of the 1964 World Champion club) and Philadelphia Phillies before returning to the Braves, who had by then moved to Atlanta. His six-year Major League career concluded in 1967.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of Uecker’s career was when he hit a home run off future Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, after which Uecker joked that he always thought that home run would keep Koufax from getting into the Hall of Fame.

After retiring as a player, Uecker returned to Milwaukee. In 1971, he began calling play-by-play for the Milwaukee Brewers’ radio broadcasts, a position he holds to this day. During his tenure, he has mentored Pat Hughes, Jim Powell, Cory Provus and Joe Block, all of whom became primary radio announcers for other MLB teams. For several years he also served as a color commentator for network television broadcasts of Major League Baseball, helping call games for ABC in the 1970s and NBC (teaming with Bob Costas and Joe Morgan) in the 1990s. During that time, he was a commentator for several League Championship Series and World Series.

As of 2016, Uecker teams with Jeff Levering to call games on WTMJ in Milwaukee and the Brewers Radio Network throughout Wisconsin, save for some road trips which he skips; for those games Lane Grindle substitutes for Uecker on the radio broadcasts. Uecker is well known for saying his catchphrase “Get up! Get up! Get outta here! Gone!” when a Brewers player hits a home run.

Known for his humor, particularly about his undistinguished playing career, Uecker actually became much better known after he retired from playing. He made some 100 guest appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. During one Tonight Show appearance Carson asked him what the biggest thrill of his professional baseball career was and with his typical dry wit Uecker replied, “Watching a fan fall out of the upper deck in Philadelphia; the crowd booed.” Most of his wisecracks poked fun at himself. He once joked that after he hit a grand slam off pitcher Ron Herbel, “When his manager came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.” On another occasion, he quipped, “Sporting goods companies would pay me not to endorse their products.” On his later acting career, he commented, “Even when I played baseball, I was acting.”

Uecker also appeared in a number of humorous commercials, most notably for Miller Lite beer, as one of the “Miller Lite All-Stars”

Here’s a selection of some of Uecker’s commercials for Miller Lite:

From 1983:

From 1984:

From 1986:

From 1987:

From 1988:

Another one from 1988, promoting the Olympics:

Historic Beer Birthday: Robert Burns

January 25, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Tonight, of course, in Burns Night, with Burns Suppers and other celebrations going on in Scottish, and other, communities worldwide. The reason it’s today is because it’s the day that Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns was born (January 25, 1759–July 21, 1796). He was “also known as Rabbie Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire, Ploughman Poet and various other names and epithets. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a light Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest.”

He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.

As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) “Auld Lang Syne” is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and “Scots Wha Hae” served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well known across the world today include “A Red, Red Rose”, “A Man’s a Man for A’ That”, “To a Louse”, “To a Mouse”, “The Battle of Sherramuir”, “Tam o’ Shanter” and “Ae Fond Kiss”.

Never been to a Burns Night? The Telegraph has an answer to What is Burns night and who was Robert Burns? “It’s a night that features whisky, haggis and poetry in honour of ‘Rabbie’ Burns.” Notice that it’s primarily whisky that is the featured drinks at these events. In a nutshell, “Burns suppers may be formal or informal. Both typically include haggis (a traditional Scottish dish celebrated by Burns in Address to a Haggis), Scotch whisky and the recitation of Burns’s poetry. Formal dinners are hosted by organisations such as Burns clubs, the Freemasons or St Andrews Societies; they occasionally end with dancing when ladies are present.”

Burns’ favorite drink was most likely whisky, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t drink wine or beer, and that fact was reflected in his poetry and song lyrics. He even did his own well-known version of the folksong John Barleycorn. So after you’ve enjoyed your haggis, and drank your whisky, here are a selection of Burns’ work where he mentions beer or ale. Some are the full poem, though most are simply an excerpt from longer poems or lyrics.

Robert Burns, from “Epitaph On John Dove, Innkeeper,” 1785

“Strong ale was ablution,
Small beer persecution,
A dram was memento mori;
But a full-flowing bowl
Was the saving his soul,
And port was celestial glory.”

Robert Burns, from “The Holy Fair,” 1785

“Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
Than either school or college;
It kindles wit, it waukens lear,
It pangs us fou o’ knowledge:
Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep,*
Or ony stronger potion,
It never fails, or drinkin deep,
To kittle up our notion,
By night or day.”

[*Note: a “penny wheep” is English small beer.]

Robert Burns, chorus from “Lady Onlie, Honest Lucky,” 1787

“Lady Onlie, honest Lucky,
Brews gude ale at shore o’ Bucky;
I wish her sale for her gude ale,
The best on a’ the shore o’ Bucky.”

Robert Burns, from “Duncan Davison,” 1788

“A man may drink, and no be drunk;
A man may fight, and no be slain;
A man may kiss a bonie lass,
And aye be welcome back again!”

Robert Burns, from “Tam o’ Shanter,” 1791

“Inspiring bold John Barleycorn, What dangers thou canst make us scorn! Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil; Wi’ usquebae, we’ll face the devil!”

Robert Burns, “Gude Ale Keeps The Heart Aboon,” 1795

“O gude ale comes and gude ale goes,
Gude ale gars me sell my hose,
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon,
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.

I had sax owsen in a pleugh,
They drew a’ weel eneugh,
I sald them a’, ane by ane,
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.

Gude ale hauds me bare and busy,
Gars me moop wi’ the servant hizzie,
Stand i’ the stool when I hae done,
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.

O gude ale comes and gude ale goes,
Gude ale gars me sell my hose,
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon,
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.”

Robert Burns, “On Gabriel Richardson,” 1795

“Here brewer Gabriel’s fire’s extinct,
And empty all his barrels:
He’s blest – if as he brew’d he drink –
In upright, honest morals.”

Robert Burns, from “Scroggam, My Dearie,” 1803

“There was a wife wonn’d in Cockpen, Scroggam;
She brew’d gude ale for gentlemen;
Sing auld Cowl lay ye down by me,
Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum.”

Engraving by David Allan, an artist from Alloa, of Burns’ poem Contented Wi’ Little.

Robert Burns, from “Contented Wi’ Little and Cantie Wi’ Mair,” 1794

“Contented wi’ little, & canty wi’ mair,
Whene’er I forgather wi’ sorrow & care
I gi’e them a skelp as they’re creeping alang,
Wi’ a cog of good ale & an auld Scottish sang.”

Belhaven’s Robert Burns Scottish Ale.

Historic Beer Birthday: Grigori Rasputin

January 21, 2020 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Today is the birthday of Grigori Rasputin (January 21, 1869–December 30, 1916). He “was a Russian peasant, an experienced traveler, a mystical faith healer, and trusted friend of the family of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of the Russian Empire. He became an influential figure in Saint Petersburg, especially after August 1915 when Nicholas took command of the army fighting in World War I. Advising his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, in countless spiritual and political issues, Rasputin became an easy scapegoat for Russian nationalists, liberals and aristocrats.

There is uncertainty over much of Rasputin’s life and the degree of influence that he exerted over the extremely shy Tsar and the strong-willed Tsarina. Accounts are often based on dubious memoirs, hearsay, and legend. While his influence and position may have been exaggerated by society gossip and his own drunken boasting his presence played a significant role in the increasing unpopularity of the Imperial couple. Rasputin was murdered by monarchists who hoped to save Tsarism by ending his sway over the royal family.”

Here’s his entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, original name Grigory Yefimovich Novykh (born 1872?, Pokrovskoye, near Tyumen, Siberia, Russian Empire—died December 30 [December 17, Old Style], 1916, Petrograd [now St. Petersburg, Russia]), Siberian peasant and mystic whose ability to improve the condition of Aleksey Nikolayevich, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, made him an influential favourite at the court of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra.

Although he attended school, the peasant Grigory Yefimovich Novykh remained illiterate, and his reputation for licentiousness earned him the surname Rasputin, Russian for “debauched one.” He evidently underwent a religious conversion at age 18, and eventually he went to the monastery at Verkhoture, where he was introduced to the Khlysty (Flagellants) sect. Rasputin perverted Khlysty beliefs into the doctrine that one was nearest God when feeling “holy passionlessness” and that the best way to reach such a state was through the sexual exhaustion that came after prolonged debauchery. Rasputin did not become a monk. He returned to Pokrovskoye, and at age 19 married Proskovya Fyodorovna Dubrovina, who later bore him four children. Marriage did not settle Rasputin. He left home and wandered to Mount Athos, Greece, and Jerusalem, living off the peasants’ donations and gaining a reputation as a starets (self-proclaimed holy man) with the ability to heal the sick and predict the future.

Rasputin’s wanderings took him to St. Petersburg (1903), where he was welcomed by Theophan, inspector of the religious Academy of St. Petersburg, and Hermogen, bishop of Saratov. The court circles of St. Petersburg at that time were entertaining themselves by delving into mysticism and the occult, so Rasputin—a filthy, unkempt wanderer with brilliant eyes and allegedly extraordinary healing talents—was warmly welcomed. In 1905 Rasputin was introduced to the royal family, and in 1908 he was summoned to the palace of Nicholas and Alexandra during one of their hemophiliac son’s bleeding episodes. Rasputin succeeded in easing the boy’s suffering (probably by his hypnotic powers) and, upon leaving the palace, warned the parents that the destiny of both the child and the dynasty were irrevocably linked to him, thereby setting in motion a decade of Rasputin’s powerful influence on the imperial family and affairs of state.

In the presence of the royal family, Rasputin consistently maintained the posture of a humble and holy peasant. Outside court, however, he soon fell into his former licentious habits. Preaching that physical contact with his own person had a purifying and healing effect, he acquired mistresses and attempted to seduce many other women. When accounts of Rasputin’s conduct reached the ears of Nicholas, the tsar refused to believe that he was anything other than a holy man, and Rasputin’s accusers found themselves transferred to remote regions of the empire or entirely removed from their positions of influence.

By 1911 Rasputin’s behaviour had become a general scandal. The prime minister, P.A. Stolypin, sent the tsar a report on Rasputin’s misdeeds. As a result, the tsar expelled Rasputin, but Alexandra had him returned within a matter of months. Nicholas, anxious not to displease his wife or endanger his son, upon whom Rasputin had an obviously beneficial effect, chose to ignore further allegations of wrongdoing.

Rasputin reached the pinnacle of his power at the Russian court after 1915. During World War I, Nicholas II took personal command of his forces (September 1915) and went to the troops on the front, leaving Alexandra in charge of Russia’s internal affairs, while Rasputin served as her personal advisor. Rasputin’s influence ranged from the appointment of church officials to the selection of cabinet ministers (often incompetent opportunists), and he occasionally intervened in military matters to Russia’s detriment. Though supporting no particular political group, Rasputin was a strong opponent of anyone opposing the autocracy or himself.

Several attempts were made to take the life of Rasputin and save Russia from further calamity, but none were successful until 1916. Then a group of extreme conservatives, including Prince Feliks Yusupov (husband of the tsar’s niece), Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich (a member of the Duma), and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich (the tsar’s cousin), formed a conspiracy to eliminate Rasputin and save the monarchy from further scandal. On the night of December 29–30 (December 16–17, Old Style), Rasputin was invited to visit Yusupov’s home and, once there, was given poisoned wine and tea cakes. When he did not die, the frantic Yusupov shot him. Rasputin collapsed but was able to run out into the courtyard, where Purishkevich shot him again. The conspirators then bound him and threw him through a hole in the ice into the Neva River, where he finally died by drowning.

The murder merely strengthened Alexandra’s resolve to uphold the principle of autocracy, but a few weeks later the whole imperial regime was swept away by revolution.

grigori-efimovici-rasputin-starets-yurodiviy-holy-fool-mysticism-spiritism-occultism

Naturally, the reason Rasputin has anything to do with beer, is that Mark Ruedrich, the founder of North Coast Brewing in Fort Bragg, California, named his imperial stout after the “mad monk,” and his Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout has become a classic beer, one of the earliest examples of what’s become a very popular style of beer, and, frankly, is still one of the best tasting.

For one of my newspaper columns, in the Fall of 2012, I wrote about imperial stouts, and below is an excerpt from that, the part that tells the story of North Coast’s Old Rasputin:

Happily, you don’t have to go as far as Russia, or even England, to find an imperial stout. We’re very lucky that one of the best Russian Imperial Stouts brewed anywhere is made in nearby Fort Bragg. North Coast Brewing’s Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout was also one of the first brewed in America, and was most likely the second (after Bert Grant’s Imperial Stout), which makes it the oldest one still being made. I visited the Fort Bragg brewery last week and watched the latest batch of Old Rasputin being bottled, as I spoke to founder Mark Ruedrich about his beer.

When they opened in 1988, North Coast had a terrific stout they called Old No. 38. But a few years later, Ruedrich decided he wanted to do something different, and noticed that almost nobody else was making the style. Grant’s version also included honey, which is not a traditional ingredient for the style. So he set to work brewing an authentic version of the style, which by that time was even nearly gone in England, too, with very few still making it.

Shortly before its 1994 debut at the pub, Tom Dalldorf, publisher of the “Celebrator Beer News,” happened to be in town visiting the brewery. He recalls Ruedrich handing him a glass and saying. “Here’s a new beer I’m about to release.” Dalldorf recalls seeing its inky black color and asking “don’t you already make a stout?” Mark responded with something like “this is different, just try it.” Like most of us, Tom immediately fell in love with it.

The beer has a definite “wow factor” from the very first sip, with gorgeous milk chocolate, roasted coffee notes and warming sweet flavors from its 9% a.b.v. It’s as bold as they come and infinitely complex, an ever-lasting gobstopper of a beer. It also enjoys near perfect balance. It’s a sipping beer, and changes as it warms in your glass. It’s a not a beer for a pint glass, you’ll want a snifter to get the full aromas of the beer as you slowly sip it by the fire.

One additional fun fact: on the label of Old Rasputin in a quote written in the Cyrillic Russian alphabet. Translated, it’s apparently a traditional Russian saying, or proverb: “a sincere friend is not born instantly.” But if you’re a fan of big beers, you’re love for this beer will almost certainly be instantaneous. For even bigger flavors, if that’s possible, try North Coast’s Old Rasputin XIV, which is their imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels.

The cyrillic text on the label is taken from an old Russian proverb. “A sincere friend is not born instantly.”

The label also features part of a well-known photograph of Rasputin. And while you find it all over the internet, its origin seems unknown, or at least widely uncredited.

The Smithsonian published a story on the 100th anniversary of his death a few years ago, entitled The Murder of Rasputin, 100 Years Later:

The holy man is he who takes your soul and will and makes them his. When you choose your holy man, you surrender your will. You give it to him in utter submission, in full renunciation.” – Feodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

The murder of Rasputin, Russia’s infamous “Mad Monk,” is the fodder for a great historical tale that blends fact and legend. But the death of the controversial holy man and faith healer had a combustible effect on the tense state of affairs in pre-revolution Russia. Rasputin was killed on December 30, 1916 (December 17 in the Russian calendar in use at the time), in the basement of the Moika Palace, the Saint Petersburg residence of Prince Felix Yussupov, the richest man in Russia and the husband of the Czar’s only niece, Irina. His battered body was discovered in the Neva River a few days later.

In the decade prior, Rasputin had risen rapidly through Russian society, starting as an obscure Siberian peasant-turned-wandering-holy-man and then becoming one of the most prominent figures in the Czar’s inner circle. Born in 1869 in the village of Pokrovskoye, on the Tura river that flows eastward from the Ural Mountains, where Europe meets Asia in Siberia. He seemed destined for an ordinary life, despite a few conflicts in his youth with local authorities for unruly behavior. He married a local woman, Praskovya Dubrovina, became the father of three surviving children, Maria, Dmitri and Varvara, and worked on his family’s farm.

Rasputin’s life changed in 1892, when he spent months at a monastery, putting him on the path to international renown. Despite his later nickname, “The Mad Monk,” Rasputin never took Holy Orders. Men in Rasputin’s position usually gave up their past lives and relationships but Rasputin continued to see his family – his daughters later lived with him in Saint Petersburg – and support his wife financially.

His religious fervor, combined with an appealing personal charisma, brought Rasputin to the attention of some Russian Orthodox clergymen and then senior members of the Imperial family, who then introduced him to Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra.

Nicholas wrote to one of his ministers in October 1906, “A few days ago I received a peasant from the Tobolsk district, Grigori Rasputin, who brought me an icon of St. Simon Verkhoturie. He made a remarkably strong impression both on Her Majesty and on myself, so that instead of five minutes our conversation went on for more than an hour.”

The Imperial couple had consulted unconventional spiritual advisors in the past, but Rasputin filled this role by his ability to read their inner hopes and tell them what they wanted to hear. He encouraged Nicholas to have more confidence in his role as czar, and Alexandra found that his counsel soothed her anxieties. By the First World War, Rasputin was also providing political advice and making recommendations for ministerial appointments, much to the dismay of the Russian elite.

Rasputin cemented his relationship with the czar and czarina when he supposedly helped alleviate their only son Alexei’s hemophilia. Rasputin’s alleged healing powers continue to be debated today. The Czar’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga, wrote that she observed Rasputin healing Alexei by kneeling at the foot of his bed and praying; the calming atmosphere that he created in the palace may have assisted with the recovery. Alexandra’s lady-in-waiting, Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, thought that Rasputin employed peasant folk medicine used in Siberian villages to treat internal bleeding in horses.

Historians continue to debate Rasputin’s impact on Alexei’s health. In his 2016 book, Rasputin: Faith, Power and the Twilight of the Romanovs, Douglas Smith observes, “Rasputin’s assurances calmed the anxious, fretful mother and filled her with unshakeable confidence, and she, in turn, transferred this confidence to her ailing son, literally willing him back to health.” In addition to increasing confidence in recovery, a key variable may have been Rasputin’s insistence that doctors keep away from Alexei. Medical knowledge was still sparse, even though drugs like aspirin were available for treatment. Unfortunately for Alexei, aspirin, considered a cure-all remedy, had the then-unknown side effect of thinning the blood, which would have exacerbated hemophilia symptoms. French historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse argued that when Rasputin insisted that remedies prescribed by the doctors be thrown in the fire, the discarded medicine likely would have included aspirin. Rasputin’s insistence that the doctors leave him alone would have improved his condition and appeared to create a miraculous improvement in his symptoms.

Rasputin presented himself in the Imperial Court as holy man, despite no formal affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church, and spoke as a self-appointed representative of the peasantry, but his behavior away from court offered a different portrait. His drunkenness and affairs with women of all social backgrounds, from street prostitutes to society ladies, scandalized the public. Rasputin appeared to bask in his fame, showing off shirts embroidered for him by the Empress and inviting her friends and servants to his home in Prokovskoye. (Rasputin’s wife appeared untroubled by his infidelities, commenting “He has enough for all.”)

The press, unshackled thanks to rights granted to them by Nicholas II in 1905, spread lurid tales about Rasputin both within Russia and abroad. Rumors about Rasputin’s influence over the Czarist regime spread throughout Europe. Petitioners, believing that Rasputin lived with the Imperial family, mailed their requests to “Rasputin, Czar’s palace, Saint Petersburg.”

Soldiers on World War I’s Eastern front spoke of Rasputin having an intimate affair with Alexandra, passing it off as common knowledge without evidence. As the war progressed, outlandish stories expanded to include Rasputin’s supposed treason with the German enemy, including a fantastical tale that he sought to undermine the war effort by starting a cholera epidemic in Saint Petersburg with “poisoned apples imported from Canada.” What the public thought they knew about Rasputin had a greater impact than his actual views and activities, fueling demands that he be removed from his position of influence by any means necessary.

Until he murdered Rasputin, Felix Yussupov lived a comparatively aimless life of privilege. One of Nicholas II’s daughters, also named Grand Duchess Olga, worked as a nurse during the war and criticized Yussupov’s refusal to enlist, writing to her father, “Felix is a ‘downright civilian,’ dressed all in brown…virtually doing nothing; an utterly unpleasant impression he makes – a man idling in such times.” Plotting Rasputin’s murder gave Yussupov the opportunity to reinvent himself as a patriot and man of action, determined to protect the throne from a malign influence.

For Yussupov and his co-conspirators, the removal of Rasputin could give Nicholas II one last chance of restoring the reputation and prestige of the monarchy. With Rasputin gone, the czar would be more open to the advice of his extended family, the nobility and the Duma and less dependent on Alexandra. There was hope that he would return from military headquarters and once again govern from Saint Petersburg.

The most well-known account of Rasputin’s murder was the one that Yussupov wrote in his memoirs, published in 1928. Yussupov claimed to have invited Rasputin to his palace to meet his wife Irina (who was in fact away at the time) and then served him a platter of cakes and numerous glasses of wine laced with potassium cyanide. To Yussupov’s astonishment, Rasputin appeared to be unaffected by the poison. A desperate Yussupov borrowed the revolver of the Grand Duke Dmitri, the czar’s cousin, and shot Rasputin multiple times, but was still unable to kill him. According to the memoir, “This devil who was dying of poison, who had a bullet in his heart, must have been raised from the dead by the powers of evil. There was something appalling and monstrous in his diabolical refusal to die.” There was reputedly water in his lungs when his remains were discovered, indicating that he had finally died by drowning.

Yussupov’s account of Rasputin’s murder entered popular culture. The lurid scene was dramatized in numerous films about Rasputin and the Romanovs and even made it into a 1970s disco hit by Boney M., which included the lyrics “They put some poison into his wine…He drank it all and said, ‘I feel fine.’”

Rasputin’s actual murder was probably far less dramatic. His daughter Maria, who fled Russia after the Revolution and became a circus lion tamer billed as “the daughter of the famous mad monk whose feats in Russia astonished the world,” wrote her own book in 1929 that condemned Yussupov’s actions and questioned the veracity of his account. She wrote that her father did not like sweets and never would have eaten a platter of cakes. The autopsy reports do not mention poison or drowning but instead conclude that he was shot in the head at close range. Yussupov transformed the murder into an epic struggle of good versus evil to sell books and bolster his own reputation.

The responses from the public were mixed, reflecting Rasputin’s checkered reputation. The elite, from whence Yussupov and his co-conspirators came, rejoiced and applauded the killers when they appeared in public. The peasantry mourned Rasputin as one of their own, seeing the murder as one more example of the nobility controlling the Czar; when a peasant rose to a position of influence with the Czar, he was murdered by wealthy men.

To the dismay of Yussupov and his co-conspirators, Rasputin’s murder did not lead to a radical change in Nicholas and Alexandra’s polities. To the emergent Bolsheviks, Rasputin symbolized the corruption at the heart of the Imperial court, and his murder was seen, rather accurately, as an attempt by the nobility to hold onto power at the continued expense of the proletariat. To them, Rasputin represented the broader problems with czarism. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Provisional Government leader Alexander Kerensky went so far as to say, “Without Rasputin there would have been no Lenin.”

And, apropos of nothing, there’s apparently a commercial vodka called “Rasputin.”

Historic Beer Birthday: James Watt

January 19, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of James Watt, not the BrewDog co-founder, but the “Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen’s 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1781, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.

While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. He realised that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water.

Watt attempted to commercialise his invention, but experienced great financial difficulties until he entered a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775. The new firm of Boulton and Watt was eventually highly successful and Watt became a wealthy man. In his retirement, Watt continued to develop new inventions though none was as significant as his steam engine work. He died in 1819 aged 83.

He developed the concept of horsepower, and the SI unit of power, the watt, was named after him.”

A portrait of James Watt, by Carl Frederik von Breda, completed in 1792.

Of course, from our perspective his most important contribution was to the industrial revolution, and specifically the improvement of brewery efficiency. While Watt did not invent the steam engine, his improvements made it practical, especially in breweries.

The Watt Steam Engine

The Watt steam engine (alternatively known as the Boulton and Watt steam engine) was the first type of steam engine to make use of a separate condenser. It was a vacuum or “atmospheric” engine using steam at a pressure just above atmospheric to create a partial vacuum beneath the piston. The difference between atmospheric pressure above the piston and the partial vacuum below drove the piston down the cylinder. James Watt avoided the use of high pressure steam because of safety concerns. Watt’s design became synonymous with steam engines, due in no small part to his business partner, Matthew Boulton.

The Watt steam engine, developed sporadically from 1763 to 1775, was an improvement on the design of the Newcomen engine and was a key point in the Industrial Revolution.

Watt’s two most important improvements were the separate condenser and rotary motion. The separate condenser, located external to the cylinder, condensed steam without cooling the piston and cylinder walls as did the internal spray in Newcomen’s engine. Watt’s engine’s efficiency was more than double that of the Newcomen engine. Rotary motion was more suitable for industrial power than the oscillating beam of Newcomen’s engine.

Watt’s most famous steam engine was the one installed at the Whitbread Brewery in 1785, which was known as the Whitbread Engine. Today it’s located in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia.

The Whitbread Engine

The Whitbread Engine preserved in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, built in 1785, is one of the first rotative steam engines ever built, and is the oldest surviving. A rotative engine is a type of beam engine where the reciprocating motion of the beam is converted to rotary motion, producing a continuous power source suitable for driving machinery.

This engine was designed by the mechanical engineer James Watt, manufactured for the firm Boulton and Watt and originally installed in the Whitbread brewery in London, England. On decommissioning in 1887 it was sent to Australia’s Powerhouse Museum (then known as the Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum) and has since been restored to full working order.

Installation of the Watt Steam Engine at Whitbread.

History of the Whitbread Engine

The engine was ordered by Samuel Whitbread in 1784 to replace a horse wheel at the Chiswell Street premises of his London brewery. It was installed in 1785, the second steam engine to be installed in a brewery, and enabled Whitbread to become the largest brewer in Britain. The horse wheel was retained for many years, serving as a backup in case the steam engine broke down. The drive gear of the engine, still evident today, was connected to a series of wooden line shafts which drove machinery within the brewery. Connected machinery included rollers to crush malt; an Archimedes’ screw, that lifted the crushed malt into a hopper; a hoist, for lifting items into the building; a three-piston pump, for pumping beer; and a stirrer within a vat. There was also a reciprocating pump connected to the engine’s beam, used to pump water from a well to a tank on the roof of the brewery.

In a marketing coup for both the brewer and the engine’s manufacturer, King George III and Queen Charlotte visited the brewery on 24 May 1787. The engine remained in service for 102 years, until 1887.

The engine made its way to the Powerhouse Museum (then known as the Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum) through Archibald Liversidge, an English-born chemist, scientist and academic at the University of Sydney, who was a trustee of the museum. Liversidge was in London in 1887, at the time of the engine’s decommissioning, and when he heard that the engine was to be scrapped he asked whether it could be donated to the museum. Whitbread & Co agreed on condition that the engine be set up and used for educational purposes.

Subsequently, the engine was dismantled and shipped to Sydney on the sailing ship Patriarch. For shipping purposes, the large flywheel was divided into two halves. While the flywheel’s rim could be unbolted, the hub with attached spokes had to be drilled through and rejoined after shipping. A shortage of funds meant the engine was kept in storage for several years. Eventually the engine was erected in its own engine house, behind the main building at the museum’s old Harris Street premises. During the 1920s or 1930s, an electric motor was added so that people could see the engine in motion. During the 1980s the Technology Restoration Society was formed in order to raise funds for the engine’s restoration. Restoration took place at the Museum’s Castle Hill site. During the restoration, some parts – including the piston – were replaced to preserve the original parts. The engine, restored to steaming condition, was installed in the new Powerhouse Museum in 1988. Today the engine is sometimes operated as part of the Museum’s Steam Revolution exhibition, steam being provided by the Museum’s central boiler.

Technical specifications

The engine has a 0.64 metres (25 in) diameter piston with a 1.8 metres (6 ft) long stroke, driven by a mean effective pressure of 70 kilopascals (10 psi). Its top speed is 20 revolutions per minute (rpm) of the flywheel. In the engine’s youth, it had a maximum power output of approximately 26 kilowatts (35 hp).[It underwent a series of alterations in 1795, converting it from single-acting to double-acting; it was alleged at the time that this conversion improved its power to 52 kilowatts (70 hp), but the Powerhouse Museum claims this is false. A centrifugal governor, which moderates the level of steam provided if the engine begins to overload was added some years after this, and beam and main driving rod, both originally of wood, were replaced in sand-cast iron.

Apart from its age, the engine is notable in that it embodies the four innovations which made Boulton & Watt’s engines a significant driver of the Industrial Revolution. The first is a separate condenser, which increases the efficiency of the engine by allowing the main cylinder to remain hot at all times. The second is the parallel motion, which converts the up-and-down motion of the piston into the arcing motion of the beam, whilst maintaining a rigid connection. The rigid connection allowed the engine to be double-acting, meaning the piston could push as well as pull the beam. Third is the centrifugal governor, used to automatically regulate the speed of the engine. Finally the sun and planet gear convert the reciprocating motion of the beam into a rotating motion, which can be used to drive rotating machinery.

There’s also another Boulton & Watt engine at the National Museum of Scotland. It “was built in 1786 to pump water for the Barclay & Perkins Brewery in Southwark, London. Made double-acting in 1796, it was then capable of grinding barley and pumping water. At that time, no one else could supply a steam engine that performed both these actions at once. With some minor modifications, it remained in service at the brewery until 1884.”

And this is more from the National Museum of Scotland:

James Watt (1736-1819) was a prolific inventor, surveyor, instrument maker and engineer. His engines dramatically increased the power that could be generated through steam.

By entering into partnership with the Birmingham magnate Matthew Boulton in 1774, James Watt was able to channel the vast resource of Boulton’s Soho Foundry. Their partnership was so successful that the Boulton & Watt firm supplied engines and expertise to countries as far a field as Russia and Greece.

After pumping water and grinding barley for almost eighty-seven years, the engine came out of service in 1883.

You can see a diagram of the engine in action here:

Watt’s Steam Engine

Inside the Engine

Lighting the Fire

Running the Engine

If you want to read more in-depth about Watt’s development of the steam engine, Chapter III of “The Development of the Modern Steam-Engine: James Watt and His Contemporaries” is online, and there’s also various links at Watt’s page at the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame.

Historic Beer Birthday: Samuel Whitbread II

January 18, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Samuel Whitbread II (January 18, 1764-July 6, 1815). Despite being the son of Whitbread Brewery founder Samuel Whitbread, he is most remember for being a politician. According to Wikipedia:

Whitbread was born in Cardington, Bedfordshire, the son of the brewer Samuel Whitbread. He was educated at Eton College, Christ Church, Oxford and St John’s College, Cambridge, after which he embarked on a European ‘Grand Tour’, visiting Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Prussia, France and Italy. He returned to England in May 1786 and joined his father’s successful brewing business.

“Samuel Whitbread Esqr. M.P.” by Samuel William Reynolds after John Opie, 1804. This is the painting’s description. “A fine full length, seated portrait of the brewer, philanthropist and Whig politician Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815). He sits at his desk, wearing a dark suit and hessian boots, before an open window, his hand resting on a piece of paper. In the background is a draped curtain and on the floor is a pile of books.”

For over two decades he was a Member of Parliament:

Whitbread was elected Member of Parliament for Bedford in 1790, a post he held for twenty-three years. Whitbread was a reformer — a champion of religious and civil rights, for the abolition of slavery, and a proponent of a national education system. He was a close friend and colleague of Charles James Fox. After Fox’s death, Whitbread took over the leadership of the Whigs, and in 1805 led the campaign to have Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, removed from office.

Whitbread admired Napoleon and his reforms in France and Europe. He hoped that many of Napoleon’s reforms would be implemented in Britain. Throughout the Peninsular War he played down French defeats convinced that sooner or later Napoleon would triumph, and he did all he could to bring about a withdrawal of Britain from the continent. When Napoleon abdicated in 1814 he was devastated. Whitbread began to suffer from depression, and on the morning of 6 July 1815, he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor.

This portrait of Whitbread was done in 1806.

Bedfordshire Genealogy and History has a fuller biography of Samuel Whitbread 2nd:

Samuel Whitbread, the son of the brewer Samuel Whitbread, and Harriet Hayton, was born in Cardington, Bedfordshire in 1758. His mother died when he was a child and his father took great care over his only son. When Samuel was sent to Eton he was accompanied by his own private tutor. Samuel continued his education at Christ Church, Oxford and St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he met his lifelong friend, Charles Grey.

After university Samuel Whitbread sent his son on a tour of Europe, under the guidance of the historian, William Coxe. This included visits to Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Prussia, France and Italy. When Samuel returned in May 1786, he joined his father running the extremely successful family brewing business.

In 1789 Samuel Whitbread married Elizabeth Grey, the sister of Charles Grey. The two men were deeply interested in politics. Grey was already MP for Northumberland and in 1790 Whitbread was elected MP for Bedford. In the House of Commons, Whitbread and Grey became followers of Charles Fox, the leader of the Radical Whigs.

Whitbread soon emerged in Parliament as a powerful critic of the Tory Prime Minister, William Pitt. A passionate supporter of reform, Whitbread argued for an extension of religious and civil rights, an end to the slave-trade, and the establishment of a national education system.

In April 1792, Whitbread joined with a group of pro-reform Whigs to form the Friends of the People. Three peers (Lord Porchester, Lord Lauderdale and Lord Buchan) and twenty-eight Whig MPs joined the group. Other leading members included Charles Grey, Richard Sheridan, Major John Cartwright, Lord John Russell,George Tierney, and Thomas Erskine. The main objective of the the society was to obtain “a more equal representation of the people in Parliament” and “to secure to the people a more frequent exercise of their right of electing their representatives”. Charles Fox was opposed to the formation of this group as he feared it would lead to a split the Whig Party.

On 30th April 1792, Charles Grey introduced a petition in favour of constitutional reform. He argued that the reform of the parliamentary system would remove public complaints and “restore the tranquillity of the nation”. He also stressed that the Friends of the People would not become involved in any activities that would “promote public disturbances”. Although Charles Fox had refused to join the Friends of the People, in the debate that followed, he supported Grey’s proposals. When the vote was taken, Grey’s proposals were defeated by 256 to 91 votes.

In 1793 Samuel Whitbread toured the country making speeches on the need for parliamentary reform. He encouraged people to sign petitions at his meetings and when he returned to London they were presented to Parliament. Whitbread also campaigned on behalf of agricultural labourers. In the economic depression of 1795, Whitbread advocated the payment of higher wages. When Whitbread introduced his minimum wage bill to the House of Commons in December 1795 it was opposed by William Pitt and his Tory government and was easily defeated.

Whitbread was a strong supporter of a negotiated peace with France and supported Fox’s calls to send a government minister to Paris. Whitbread argued for Catholic Emancipation and opposed the act for the suppression of rebellion in Ireland. His friend, Samuel Romilly, said that Whitbread was “the promoter of every liberal scheme for improving the condition of mankind, the zealous advocate of the oppressed, and the undaunted opposer of every species of corruption and ill-administration.”

In 1807 Samuel Whitbread proposed a new Poor Law. His scheme not only involved an increase in the financial help given to the poor, but the establishment of a free educational system. Whitbread proposed that every child between the ages of seven and fourteen who was unable to pay, should receive two years’ free education. The measure was seen as too radical and was easily defeated in the House of Commons.

Whitbread refused to be disillusioned by his constant defeats and during the next few years he made more speeches in the House of Commons than any other member. Sometimes his attacks on George III and his ministers were considered to be too harsh, even by his closest political friends.

Unable to persuade Parliament to accept his ideas, Whitbread used his considerable fortune (his father, Samuel Whitbread had died in 1796) to support good causes. Whitbread gave generous financial help to establish schools for the poor. An advocate of the monitorial system developed by Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster, he helped fund the Royal Lancasterian Society that had the objective of establishing schools that were not controlled by the Church of England.

When the Whigs gained power in 1806, Whitbread expected the Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, to offer him a place in his government. He was deeply disappointed when this did not happen. Some claimed it was because Whitbread was too radical. Others suggested it was due to snobbery and the aristocrats in the party disapproved of a tradesman entering the cabinet.

After this rejection, Whitbread consoled himself with his involvement in the Drury Lane Theatre. In 1809 the theatre was destroyed by fire. Already over £500,000 in debt, the theatre was in danger of going out of business. Whitbread became chairman of the committee set up to rebuild the theatre. With the help of his political friends, Whitbread managed to raise the necessary funds and the Drury Lane Theatre was reopened on 10th October, 1812.

In 1815 Whitbread began to suffer from depression. Over the years he had been upset by the way he was portrayed by the political cartoonists such as, James Gillray and George Cruikshank. He also began to worry about the brewery business and the way he was treated in the House of Commons. After one debate in June he told his wife: “They are hissing me. I am become an object of universal abhorrence.” On the morning of 6th June 1815, Samuel Whitbread committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor.

And if that’s not enough, the “Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 61” also includes a biography and Encyclopedia.com has an overview of the company, as does AIM25.

This is a political cartoon featuring Samuel Whitbread entitled “The Brewer and the Thistle.” It was drawn by James Sayers, and published by Hannah Humphrey, June 26, 1805. The people in the cartoon include Charles James Fox (1749-1806), James Maitland Lauderdale (1759-1839), William Wilberforce (1759-1833), Sir Home Riggs Popham (1762-1820), Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815) and Henry Dundas Melville (1742-1811). While I’m sure you need to be a historian specializing in this period of British history, the Royal Collection Trust gives this description. “Whitbeard in costume of beer casks, attacks thistle with Melville’s head. (r) alehouse; Fox and Launderdale (in tartan) laugh. Wilberforce leans out of window dressed as Puritan. (l) blunderbuss fired at sign of St.Vicent.”

Finally, here’s the Whitbread Brewery on Chiswell Street in London as it appeared around 1900.

Historic Beer Birthday: Joseph Junk

January 15, 2020 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Today is the birthday of German-born Joseph Junk (January 15, 1841-1887) who emigrated to the U.S. in 1868, and in 1883 opened the eponymous Joseph Junk Brewery in Chicago, Illinois. Unfortunately, he died just a few years later, in 1887, and his widow, Magdalena Junk, took over management of the brewery, renaming it Junk’s Brewery and then the Jos. Junk Brewery, which it remained until 1909. She increased production from around 4,000 barrels to 45,000 barrels of lager beer.

It then became the South Side Brewing Co. until prohibition, and afterwards reopened under that same name. But in 1937 in became the more fancifully named Ambrosia Brewing Co., then changed again one final time, to the Atlantic Brewing Co., before closing for good in 1965. It was located at 3700/3710 South Halstead and 37th Streets. According to Tavern Trove, “the brewery has been torn down. What was the Ambrosia Brewery is now the parking lot for Schaller’s Pump, a tavern located at 3714 S. Halsted, Chicago.”

Here’s a short article from the Western Brewer (Brewer’s Journal) from August 1909 reporting on the transition from Jos. Junk to South Side Brewing.

I was unable to find any photos of any of the Junk family, and in fact very little of anything, which I guess makes sense since they were the Junk Brewery, or some variation, for a relatively short time a very long time ago. Here’s what I did find.

A rare Junk bottle.

This is a South Side delivery truck taken around 1936.

The website where I found this claims it was from 1930, but American Breweries II states that it wasn’t called Ambrosia Brewing until 1937, so it’s probably from the late 1930s at the earliest. But another source says it’s from the 1950s, and indeed it as known as Ambrosia through 1959, so that’s perhaps more likely given the look of the postcard.

This is in the collection of the Chicago History Museum, but they appear to have no idea when it was taken.

This is the brewery around 1952, taken by Ernie Oest and featured at beer can history.

But by far, this is the most interesting bit of history on Joseph Junk I turned up. This is a newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune for March 29, 1902. It concerns what I can only assume is Joe and Magdalena’s son, since they refer to him as a “young man” and “member of the Chicago Brewery” rather then saying “owner.” Seems the young man went on a bender in San Francisco and ended up marrying some floozy he’d just met. But here’s the best bit. “The trouble began when the young man’s family learned that Lottie (is that not a floozy’s name?) had done a song-and-dance turn in abbreviated skirts.” Oh, the horror. It sounds like they could live with or tolerate the “song-and dance turn,” but not, I repeat not, if there were “abbreviated skirts” involved. That was the deal breaker, so they sent him off on “a Southern tour” and her packing back to Frisco, eventually settling on a payoff on $10,000, which in today’s money is over a quarter-million dollars, or roughly $276,150. It must have been the talk of polite society for months afterwards, bringing shame down on the Junk family.

Charles Deulin’s Tales of King Cambrinus

January 4, 2020 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Today is the birthday of Charles Deulin (January 4, 1827–77). He was “a French writer, theatre critic, and folklorist who is most known for his contemporary adaptations of European folk tales.”

This biography of Deulin is from “The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales,” published in 2008:

Charles Deulin was the son of a poor tailor who lived in the Escaut, a region in the north of France whose folklore inspired his major works. Deulin’s early career as the secretary of an enlightened notary and patron of the arts came to a sudden end after he eloped with the daughter of a notable local merchant. Deulin relocated to Paris, where he worked as a columnist for numerous French journals and reviews. However, Deulin found his real fame writing tales that drew on regional folklore and folktales. His first tale, “Le compere de la mort” (“Godfather Death”), was based on an oral tale that he had first adapted as a song. His tales achieved both popular and critical success, so Deulin mined the rare resources and folk literature in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris for material that he could reshape into tales of his own. Contes d’un buveur de biere (Tales of a Beer Drinker, 1868) and its sequels Contes du roi Cambrinus (Tales of King Cambrinus, 1874) and Histoires de petite ville (Village Stories, 1875) constitute his most important collections of fairy tales. Les contes de ma Mere l’Oye avant Perrault (The Tales of Mother Goose from before Perrault), a scholarly work that explores Charles Perrault’s likely sources, was published in 1879, after his death. Deulin and his beer drinker remind us of his contemporary Alphonse Daudet and his windmill of Provence. Despite obvious differences between these writers, they both provide sharp yet personal evocations of the lore of their native regions, thanks to their skill at giving French language a distinctive regional twist.

His second collection of stories was called “Contes d’un buveur de bière” (“Tales of a Beer Drinker”) and was published in 1868. “Deulin based one of the stories, “Cambrinus, Roi de la Bière” (“Cambrinus, King of Beer”), on folktales about the origin of a beer-brewing mythological king called Gambrinus. In the story, a lovelorn Gambrinus makes a deal with the Devil, and Beelzebub teaches him about brewing.”

Here’s a summary of his first Cambrinus story:

In this, the seminal Cambrinus short story, Cambrinus is an apprentice glassblower in the Flemish village of Fresnes-sur-Escaut, but he believes that he lacks the skill and upward mobility to succeed in glassblowing. He becomes smitten with the master glassblower’s daughter, Flandrine. When he tells her, she rebuffs him and he leaves in disgrace. He apprentices himself to a viol master and becomes a great player. One day, he summons the courage to climb on a barrel and play publicly. He plays well, but just as he has whipped the crowd into a dance, the sight of Flandrine flusters him, and he bungles his playing. The villagers, believing Cambrinus tripped them up on purpose, pull him off the barrel to jeer and strike him. A contemptuous judge called Jocko sentences Cambrinus to a month in prison. When Cambrinus emerges a month later, he feels so ashamed that he prepares to hang himself. As he stands with the noose around his neck, a colourfully-dressed stranger appears. Cambrinus recognizes him by his horns: it is Beelzebub. As they chat, Beelzebub reveals that he has killed the judge, and now expects to collect Cambrinus’ soul, for, he says, such is his fate if he hangs himself. Not wanting to go to hell or to return to life as he knew it, Cambrinus tries to bargain. Beelzebub cannot make Flandrine love him, so Cambrinus settles for forgetting his affection for her; he also wants revenge on the villagers. Beelzebub tells him that the way to forget is if “one nail drives out another.”

Cambrinus wins a fortune in games of skill and chance. The consistent winning becomes tedious, so he returns to Flanders—but Flandrine still refuses him. Once again, he is about to hang himself when Beelzebub reappears, and tells him that drinking is the way to forget. Cambrinus drinks wine, gin, whisky, cider, and brandy, but his condition only worsens. Cambrinus is momentarily contented when Beelzebub introduces him to beer, but he seeks revenge on those who would not dance for him. Beelzebub tells him that playing the carillon will prove irresistible.

Cambrinus builds a large brewery with a carillon and a belfry, then invites the villagers for a drink after Mass. They come, but find the beer too bitter. To punish them, Cambrinus plays his carillon, and everyone in earshot is compelled to dance until they beg for a drink. This time, they find the beer delicious, and Cambrinus’ dances become an institution that transforms the village of Fresnes-sur-Escaut.

Fame of the drink and of Cambrinus’ carillon reaches the king of the Netherlands, who in return heaps titles of nobility on Cambrinus: Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders, Lord of Fresnes. But even after founding the town of Cambrai, Cambrinus prefers the villagers’ honorary title for him: King of Beer. When Flandrine finally approaches him, he rejects her.

At the end of the 30 years, Beelzebub sends Jocko, the judge, to fetch Cambrinus; but Jocko drinks too much beer and sleeps for three days. Since he is too ashamed to return to hell, he hides in a purse. Cambrinus thrives for nearly a hundred years more. When Cambrinus finally dies, Beelzebub comes for his soul, only to find that Cambrinus’ body has become a beer barrel.

Contes_d'un_buveur_de_bière_Deulin_Charles

For his third collection of stories, “Deulin made his Cambrinus character the focus,” in “Contes du roi Cambrinus” (“Tales of King Cambrinus”), which was published in 1874. This collection included at least “Cambrinus, The Devil’s Pot, Manneken-pis, Martin and Martine, The Muscades of Guerliche, The Poirier de Misère, and The Thirty-Six Encounters of Jean du Gogué.

This is a Google translation from the French Wikisource library:

I

In the old days, there was in the village of Fresnes-sur-l’Escaut a glass boy named Cambrinus, according to other Gambrinus, who, with his pink and fresh face, his beard and his golden hair, was indeed the prettiest you could see.

More than one young lady of glass, bringing her father’s dinner, was annoying the handsome Cambrinus; but he had eyes only for Flandrine, the daughter of his blower.

Flandrine was, on her side, a beautiful girl with golden hair, cheeks reouvelèmes, – It was meant to be a vermeilles, and never would a better matched couple have been blessed by the cure, had there not been between them an insurmountable barrier.

Cambrinus was not a glass race and could not aspire to mastery. He had, throughout his life, to pass the bottle sketched to his blower, without ever claiming the honor of finishing it himself.

Nobody is ignorant, indeed, that the glassmakers are all Gentiles-men by birth and only show their sons the noble profession of blower. But Flandrine was too proud to lower her eyes to a simple big boy, as they say in the language of glass.

This made the unhappy man, consumed by a fire ten times hotter than his oven, lost his fresh colors and became dry like a heron.

No longer able to hold out, one day he was alone with Flandrine, he took his courage in both hands and told him his feelings. The proud girl received him with such disdain that in despair he planted his work there and did not reappear at the glassworks.

As he loved music, he bought a viol to charm his troubles and tried to play it without ever learning.

The idea then came to him to become a musician. ” I will become a great artist, he said to himself, and perhaps Flandrin will want me. A good musician is well worth a glass gentleman. ”

He went to find an old canon of Conde’s collegiate, named Josquin, who had a wonderful genius for music. He told him of his troubles and asked him to teach him his art. Josquin felt sorry for his grief and showed him to play the viol according to the rules.

Cambrinus was soon in a position to make the girls dance on the meadow. He was ten times more skillful than the other minstrels; but unfortunately! No one is a prophet in his own country.

The people of Fresnes did not want to believe that a glass boy had become in such a short time a good musician, and it was under a rolling fire of jeers that, on a fine Sunday, armed with his viola, he mounted his platform I mean his barrel.

Although very moved, he gave a sure hand the first bows. Little by little he became animated and led the dance with a vigor and an enthusiasm that silenced the laughter. Everything was going well when Flandrine appeared.

At his sight, the unfortunate man lost his head, played against the weather and beat the campaign so well that the dancers, believing that he was making fun of them, dragged him out of his barrel, broke his rapes on the shoulders and sent him back booed, boozy and pooped eyes.

To make matters worse, there was at that time at Conde a judge who did justice like the grocers sell candles, by leaning the scales to his liking. He was a stammerer, spoke almost always in Latin, mumbled paternosters from morning till night, and looked so much like a monkey that he was nicknamed Jocko.

Jocko learned the case and called the disrupters to his court. The Fresnois went there, each bearing a couple of chickens which they offered to the judge. The latter found the chickens so fat and Cambrinus so guilty that, although the unfortunate man had been beaten in full sun, he condemned him to a month’s imprisonment for assault and night-time fury.

It was a big heartbreak for the poor boy. He was so ashamed and sorry that when he was released from prison he resolved to end life. He unfastened the rope from his well, which was brand new, and reached the wood of Odomez.

At the darkest intersection, he climbed an oak tree, sat down on the first branch, tied the rope tightly and wrapped it around his neck. That done, he raised his head, and he was going to take the plunge, when he suddenly stopped.

Before his eyes was a man of tall stature, dressed in a green coat with copper buttons, wearing a feathered hat, armed with a hunting knife, and carrying a silver horn over his carnivore. Cambrinus and he looked at each other for some time in silence.

“That I do not bother you! finally said the unknown.

“I am in no hurry,” replied the other, a little chilled by the presence of a stranger.

– But I am, my good Cambrinus.

– Here! you know my name?

– And I also know that you’re going to dance your last jig, because you’ve been thrown in prison and the kind Flandrine refuses to enlist you in the big brotherhood … ”

And so saying, the stranger took off his hat.

“What! it’s you, myn heer van Belzebuth. Well ! by your two horns, I thought you were uglier.

– Thank you!

– And what good wind brings you?

– Is it not today Saturday? My wife is washing the house, and, as I hate wassingues …

– You have decamped. I understand that. And … did you have a good hunt?

– Pooh! I only report the soul of the judge of Condé.

– How! Jocko is dead! And you take away his soul! Oh ! but do not waste time, myn heer. What are you waiting for?

– I’m waiting for yours.

– What if I do not hang myself?

– It will be hell in this world.

– Which is not much better. But that’s just right, that, godverdom! Come on, Monsieur the devil, be good devil and shoot me from there!

– But how?

Let Flandrine want to marry me.

– Impossible, good! What woman wants …

“God wills it, I know it; but what she does not want?

– What she does not want, the devil himself would lose his horns.

– So, make sure I do not love him anymore.

– I agree … on one condition. It is that you will give me your soul in exchange.

– Right now?

– No. In thirty years from here.

– My faith! start there. I am too unhappy … but you will help me, on the other hand, to avenge myself on the people of Fresnes.

Let’s first think of healing yourself, and remember this. One nail drives out another. It is not so strongsion that does not yield to a more passionate passion. Day and night plays, and replaces the game of love by the love of the game.

“I’ll try,” Cambrinus said. Thank you, myn heer. ”

He untied his rope and drew his bow.

II

There was precisely in Condé, the following Sunday, a great archery. Cambrinus went there, like all the Fresnois.

The brotherhood of the archers of San Sebastián had displayed, in price, five dishes and three tin pots, plus six teaspoons in silver for the last birdie shot. Cambrinus won four dishes, two coffee pots and six silver spoons. No one had ever heard of such an address.

As, eight days later, the ball was to be played on the Place Verte de Conde, he formed at Fresnes a platoon of players, and although until then the Fresnois had scarcely shone on the game of palm, he did not He feared not to fight against the parts of Valenciennes and Quaregnon, the two strongest in the country. The Valenciennes and the Quaregnonais were defeated by the Fresnois. They got angry, and they fisted in every street.

Cambrinus then bought a blind finch, which, in the fashion of the people of the Walloon country, he carried everywhere with him. Having heard that there must have been a great competition of finches in Saint-Amand, he took his fellow-traveler and set off.

On approaching the town, he met on the Croisette the guns that, three hundred in number, went to the place of the battle, two by two, and holding in their hands their little wooden cages, furnished with wire. The procession was preceded by a drum-major, adorned with his cane, two drums, and six hams, ornamented with flowers, worthy of the prize.

Cambrinus followed suit, and when the cages were ranged in battle, along the enclosure of the Abbey, a pretty concert was heard. Each bird shouted at the top of its cheerful chorus, while with a piece of chalk its master, under the surveillance of the commissaries, conscientiously inscribed the guns on a slate. The noise was such that the big bell of the tower had not been heard.

The Fresnois had bet three thousand florins that, without intermingling his song of p’tit-p’tit-petit-placapiau who escape the artifithese second-rate, his virtuoso would repeat nine hundred times in one hour ran-plan-plan-plan-biscouïtte-biscoriau, the true solo, the only one that can count.

The bird went up to nine hundred and fifty, and the master won the first prize and the three thousand florins, after which the Amandinois triumphantly walked the man and the beast, one carrying the other.

Cambrinus then set out to cross Flanders, beating with his tenor the most renowned gunslingers; and it is from this period that the Flemings are as passionate about finches as the English for cockfights.

From Flanders he went to Germany and traveled from town to town, playing all games of skill and chance. Everywhere he took his chance with him. He made general admiration, gained enormous sums, became immensely rich, but he did not cure of his love.

This infallible luck had at first delighted him. Later, she only amused him; then she left him cold and soon she bored him. In the end, he was so tired of this perpetual gain that he would have given everything to lose once; but his happiness pursued him with relentless obstinacy.

He was beginning to be very unhappy, when, one morning, he awoke with a luminous idea: “To something happiness is good,” he said to himself. Perhaps Flandrine will consent to marry me, now that I am all sewn with gold. ”

He returned to deposit his treasures at the feet of the cruel; but, unbelievable and well done to astonish the ladies of today, Flandrine refused.

“Are you a gentleman? she says.

– No.

– Well! win your treasures, I will marry only a gentleman.”

Cambrinus was so desperate that one fine day, between dog and wolf, he returned to the wood of Odomez, climbed the oak, sat down on the first branch, and fastened his rope securely. Already the noose around the neck was passing, when the green hunter appeared.

“Ah! fuck! cried Beelzebub, I had forgotten the proverb: Unhappy in love, happy in the game. Do you want me to tell you a way to lose? ”

Cambrinus listened.

“Yes, you will lose, and you will lose more than gold. You will lose your memory, and with it the torments of remembrance.

– And how?

– Wood. Wine is the father of oblivion. Wormmake waves of joy. Nothing beats a bottle of piot to drown human sadness.

– You might be right, myn heer.”

And Cambrinus rolled his rope and went back to Fresnes.

III

Without wasting time, he had a large cellar of six hundred feet, forty feet wide, and tall, built in broad Tournay stones. He garnishes it with the most exquisite wines.

In the lightnings, arranged on two parallel lines, ripened the warm burgundy, the sweet burgundy, the sparkling champagne, the gay malvoisie, the marsala bulletin board, the ardent sherry, the generous tokai and the tender johannisberg, which opens to the square heads of Germany the golden gates of daydreaming.

Day and night Cambrinus drank the juice of the vine in Bohemian glasses. The unfortunate thought he drank oblivion, he drank only love. Where did this phenomenon come from? Alas! that the good Flemings are otherwise built that the people of elsewhere.

At home, when the fumes of wine invade the brain, when the divine juice ends under the skull, as the lava at the bottom of the crater, it is only then that the imagination catches fire.

At the sixth glass, the Flamand invariably saw in front of his eyes, at the arms of pretty dancers, myriads of Flandrines, who made him a nique by performing interminable carmagnoles.

Then he sought oblivion in Norman cider, manceau parsley, Gallic mead, French cognac, Dutch gin, English gin, Scottish whiskey, German kirsch. Alas! cider, perry, mead, cognac, juniper, gin, whiskey, and kirsch only fueled the furnace. The more he drank, the more excited he was, the more he raged.

One evening he could no longer resist; he ran all at once to the wood of Odomez, climbed the oak, fastened the rope, and, without raising his eyes, to be sure not to return, He rushed the rope around his neck. The rope broke and the hangman fell into the green hunter’s arms.

“Do you want to let me go, damn impostor? exclaimed Cambrinus in a strangled voice. How! you will not even be able to hang yourself at your ease! ”

Belzebuth burst out laughing.

“I wanted to see,” he said, “how far the confidence of a good Flemish would go. And now, for the trouble, I’ll heal you. Here, look!”

All at once the trees parted to the right and to the left, so as to leave a large empty square, and Cambrinus saw in line long rows of large poles made of chestnut wood, where were curled frail plants which bore green and fragrant bells.

Some of the stakes were lying on the ground and three to four hundred squatting women seemed to peel a huge salad. This strange forest was bounded by a vast brick building.

“What is this, myn God? exclaimed the Fresnois.

“This, my good man, is a hopshop, and the house you see there a brewery. The flower of this plant will heal you from love sickness. Follow me. ”

Beelzebub led him into the building. There were enormous vats, stoves, tons, and boilers full of blond liquor, from which an acrid perfume was exhaled. Men in blue aprons were doing a strange job.

“It is with barley and hops,” says Beelzebub, “that, by the example of these men, you will make Flemish wine, that is, beer. re. When the millstone has crushed the barley, you will brew it in this large vat, from which the barley wine will pass into these vast boilers to be married to the hops. The hops flower will give the flavor and scent to barley wine. Thanks to the sacred plant, the beer, like the juice of the vine, can age in barrels. She will come out blonde like topaz or brown like onyx, and make good Flemings as many gods on the earth. Here, wood! ”

And Beelzebub pulled from one of the casks a great jug of foaming beer. Cambrinus obeyed and made a face.

“Drink again, again!”

The other goal, discarded and felt a sort of calm down gradually in his senses.

“Are not you happy as a god?

“Yes, sir, except that I miss the supreme pleasure of the gods.

– And which one?

– Revenge! The people of Fresnes have not wanted to dance to the sound of my viol. Give me an instrument that will blow them to my will.

– Listen, then.”

At this moment, nine knocks sounded at the belfry of Vieux-Conde.

– Well? Cambrinus said.

– Shut up and listen again. ”

The bell tower of Fresnes repeated the ring, then that of Condé, then that of Bruille.

“After? said the Fresnois again.

– You ask me for an instrument that forces you to dance. Here he is all found. Have you noticed that these bells each have their own sound? Gather several, give them, put the ringtone in motion with two keyboards, one of keys and the other of pedals, you will have the most beautiful chime …

– Carillon! This is the name of which I will baptize this marvelous instrument, exclaimed Cambrinus. Thank you, my good Beelzebub, and … goodbye!

– No. Goodbye! … in thirty years … and, as I like business, you will give me the grace to sign this paper with a drop of your blood. ”

He presented him with a feather and a parchment covered with cabalistic characters. The Fresnois pricked his fingertip and signed. At once the hops, the brewery, and Beelzebub, all disappeared.

IV [ edit ]
Returning to Fresnes, Cambrinus advised a rich and deep land sheltered from the wind. He bought it and planted some hops. He also had an immense brewery built in the very spot of the village, in all likeness to that which Belzebub had shown him. He crowned it with a belfry in the shape of a gigantic can, surmounted by a pint and a barrel, which ended with a golden rooster.

If a stranger had come into the country to perform these strange works, we would have been very careful not to laugh at them, but the builder being born at Fresnes, he was thought to be mad, as it should, and we began to laugh at him again.

He paid no attention to it, asked mechanics and bell-founders, and made the establishment of the carillon and the brewery march in front.

When it was all over, he made two great brews, one of white beer, the other of dark beer, and one Sunday morning, after mass, he invited people to have a drink.

“Ugh! how bitter! said one.

– It’s horrible! another said.

– Despicable! added a third.

– Abominable! Concludes a fourth.

Cambrinus was smiling under his breath.

In the afternoon, he arranged long tables around the square. On these tables pots and glasses full of dark beer awaited the drinkers. When the Fresnois came out of vespers, the brewer urged them to cool off again. They refused.

“You do not want to drink, boys,” thought Cambrinus, “well! you will dance! And he went up to his belfry.

“Dig, din, don,” said the chime.

Suddenly, oh prodigy! at the first blows of the bells, men, women, children, all stopped short, as if they were preparing to dance.

“Dyke, dyke, din. ”

All raised their legs, and the mayor himself shook the ashes of his pipe and sat up.

“Dig, din, gift, dike, dyke, gift. ”

All jumped in rhythm, and the mayor and the country guard jumped higher than the others.

Cambrinus then paused, then he attacked the air:

Band of beggars, would you like to dance?

The young, the old, the fat, the skinny, the big and the small, the rights, the turtles, the wobbly, the lame began to dance again, until the dogs stood on their hind legs to dance as well. . A cart passed by: the horse and the cart entered the dance. They danced on the square, in the streets, in the alleys, as far as the carillon was heard; and on the road the people of Conde who came to Fresnes were dancing without knowing why or how. Everything was dancing in the houses: men, animals and furniture. The old men danced by the fire, the sick in their beds. the horses danced in the stable, the cows in the stable, the hens in the henhouse; and the tables danced, the chairs, the cupboards, and the dressers; and the houses danced themselves, and the brasserie danced and the church; and the tower in which Cambrinus was pealing was opposite the bell-tower, giving himself graces. Never, since the world is a world, had we seen such a jerky jerk!

After an hour of this exercise, the Fresnois were swimming. Panting, exhausted, they shouted to the carillonneur:

“Stop, stop! We can not take it anymore!

– No no. Dance, “replied the carillonneur, and the more he carilloned, the more the dancersleapt. Their heads clashed, and the crowd began to moan piteously.

” To drink ! to drink! They finally shouted.

The carillonneur stopped pealing, and men, women, children, animals, and houses stopped dancing. Dancers and dancers rushed over the peas, which, surprisingly, had jumped with the tables without spreading a single drop of beer.

Thus put in taste, the Fresnois no longer found the new detestable liquor, on the contrary.

After they had emptied three or four pints each, they asked Cambrinus to let his music go. and they danced all evening and part of the night.

The next day and the following days, the rumor spread, and people came from all parts to Fresnes to drink beer and to dance in the carillon.

A crowd of chimes; music clocks, breweries, taverns, cabarets and estaminets soon settled in Fresnes, Condé, Valenciennes, Lille, Dunkirk, Mons, Tournay, Bruges, Leuven and Brussels.

Like a godmother who throws dragees, the carillon shook her silver apron full of magical notes, and the barley wine flowed in the Netherlands, Holland, Germany, England and Scotland.

They drank the dark beer, the white beer, the double beer, the lambic, the faro, the pale-ale, the scotch-ale, the porter and the stout, without forgetting the beer; however, the carillon de Fresnes remained the only enchanted carillon, the beer of Fresnes, the best beer, and the Fresnois, the first drinkers in the world.

Competitions of Frankish drinkers took place, such as finches in all the Netherlands; but it was only at Fresnes that they found some good drinkers, capable of absorbing a hundred pints in one day of a fair and twelve steins while the twelve o’clock strokes were striking at the church clock.

To reward the inventor with dignity, the King of the Netherlands made him Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders and Lord of Fresnes. It was then that the new Duke founded the city of Cambrai; but the title which he preferred to all others was that of “king of beer,” which the locals bestowed on him.

He did not delay, however, in experiencing the generous effects of the brown liquor. At first he emptied his two cans every evening. At the end of six months of this regime, his amorous delirium calmed down, the face of Flandrine appeared to him less clear and less mocking.

When he could hold his twelve pints, he felt in him only a vague and indefinable reverie.

The evening he went to twenty, he fell into a sort of drowsiness, which was not without charm, and quite forgot Flandrine. In a short time, his face again rivaled the full moon: he became very fat and was perfectly happy.

When Flandrine saw that the lord de Fresnes was not thinking of claiming his hand, it was she who came round about him; but, as he dreamed, his eyes half closed, he did not recognize her, and offered him a pint.

The king of beer was, besides, a good king’s man, who put his happiness in smoking his pipe and drinking his mug at the same table as his subjects. His subjects all imitated his example, and it is from then on that, melancholy smokers, besides stomachs and noses in bloom, the good Flemings spend their lives draining pints without speaking ill of anyone and without thinking of anything.

V

However, thirty years were over, and Belzebub thought of demanding the soul of Cambrinus. The devil will not always touch his debts in no one. Like the creditors from above, he sometimes sends a bailiff.

On the other hand, as the world gets older, becomes worse and gives more work to those below, Beelzebub, in order to suffice, is obliged, from time to time, to make recruits.

To reinforce his staff, he chooses, among the newcomers, the good people who on earth have particularly resembled him.

The judge who had formerly condemned Cambrinus had the honor of passing the devil, and, in memory of his former office, Belzebub resolved to elevate him to the rank of infernal usher.

“Come on, face of ape,” he said to him one morning. The moment has come to signal you with new feats. You will go to the village of Fresnes, and there you will claim in my name the soul of Cambrinus, king of beer. Here is the title.

– Su … Sufficiency, Do … Domine, “answered Jocko. And he took the road to Fresnes at once. He arrived there on the Sunday of the ducasse.

The king of beer had just risen in his turn. He saw the emissary of Beelzebub coming from afar, recognized him, and suspected what was bringing him.

VI

It was about six o’clock, and the people were leaving the table having drunk and eaten since midday. Some were spreading in cabarets to digest by smoking a pipe. Others played bowling or raven, or else bricotiau.

The envoy of Beelzebub addressed a circle of drinkers sitting at the door of the estaminet of the Grand St. Lawrence, patron of glassmakers.

At this moment, dig, din, don! a sheaf of notes burst into the air like a rocket, then the carillon began to play:

Hello, my friend Vincent,

Health, how is it?

The judge immediately jumped like a gigantic puppet.

“What … what do I have? He said, and nothing was a buffoon like the furious face with which he was fidgeting.

All the Fresnois gathered together, holding the ribs with laughter.

Ah! what a nose he has! ‘

then played the chime, and two hundred voices sang in chorus:

Ah! what a nose he has!

as long as the dancer fell to the ground, exhausted and out of breath. The chime was silent.

As Jocko complained of a horrible thirst, he was brought a mug of beer which he emptied at one stroke.

Having always liked to raise his elbow, he drank a second, then a third, then a crowd of others with his good friends the Fresnois.

By dint of drinking, he completely forgot his mission, and when, towards the fiftieth mug, the heads warmed up and the hops began, as they say at home, to pass the poles, he was suddenly seized with a gay access been crazy.

He got up, took the pots, the cans, and the glasses, threw everything on the pavement, threw the table and cover over it, then began to dance on his own, claiming the music loudly.

The Fresnois all ran behind him in single file: he made several rounds of the place on the air of the Codaqui, and took the band out of the village, a quarter of a league away.

He finally fell on the road, tired and completely out of action. He was laid down against a haystack, and slept there for three days and three nights without debriding.

When he awoke, he was so ashamed that he did not dare to go back to Fresnes or go back to hell. Not knowing where to go, he saw an empty purse that a poor man was tending to passers-by. He went in and hid there so well that he is still there.

And from that comes a common saying of a penniless man that he houses the devil in his purse.

VII

Lord de Fresnes continued to carillon and brew beer for nearly a hundred years, with no further news of hell. As he isthat the devil never lost anything, Belzebuth hoped to repel the soul of the duke of Brabant on the day of his death; but when the supreme moment came, in the place of his debtor, he found only a barrel of beer; he was well caught.

Was it because of the effect of the drink of forgetfulness, or did Belzébuth seek revenge for the trick Cambrinus had played him? The memory of the king of beer was soon lost in Fresnes and in all the Netherlands.

The Douaiiens still celebrate the feast of their old Gayant, but it is a long time ago that Cambrai no longer walks the wicker giant who represented Cambrinus, the royal founder of the city.

It is among the Prussians that the memory of Bacchus of hops has been preserved. There, in each tavern, you will see, in the place of honor, a magnificent image representing, sitting on a barrel, a brave knight dressed in a purple cloak lined with ermine. The left hand leans on a crown and a sword; the right raises triumphantly a mug of foaming beer.

It is Cambrinus, the king of beer, as he was in his lifetime, with his beautiful figure, his long golden hair, and his long golden beard.

Students annually appoint bierkœnig most outspoken drinker of them, and only they are entitled to this great honor of sitting under the portrait of the monarch sparkling.

The people of Fresnes will be very surprised when they read this truthful story. Just as they did not believe in the genius of Cambrinus before, they will not believe his glory today, and when he who has written these lines will go and drink a pint at the Ducasse de Fresnes, we will not hesitate to to call him an impostor, so true is it that no one is a prophet in his country!

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, most of Deulin’s works have not been published in an English translation, which is a shame. I’d love to read more of his “Tales of a Beer Drinker” and its sequel “Tales of King Cambrinus.”

Historic Beer Birthday: Michael Joseph Owens

January 1, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Michael Joseph Owens (January 1, 1859–December 27, 1923). He “was an inventor of machines that could automate the production of glass bottles.”

If you’ve ever opened a beer bottle, you’ve probably held something he had a hand in developing, because he made beer bottles cheap and affordable for breweries, and his company has continued to improve upon his designs. Based on his patents, in 1903 he founded the Owens Bottle Company, which in 1929 merged with the Illinois Glass Company in 1929 to become Owens-Illinois, Inc. Today, O-I is an international company with 80 plants in 23 countries, joint ventures in China, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the United States and Vietnam, with 27,000 employees worldwide and 2,100-plus worldwide patents.

Michael J. Owens in front of one of his bottling machines from a film shot in 1910.

Here’s a short biography of Owens:

Michael Joseph Owens was an inventor of machines that could automate the production of glass bottles.

Michael J. Owens was born on January 1, 1859, in Mason County, West Virginia. As a teenager, he went to work for a glass manufacturer in Newark, Ohio.

During the late 1800s, Toledo, Ohio was the site of large supplies of natural gas and high silica-content sandstone — two items necessary for glass manufacturing. Numerous companies either formed in or relocated to Toledo, including the New England Glass Company, which relocated to Toledo in 1888. This same year, the company’s owner, Edward Drummond Libbey, hired Owens.

Within a short time, Owens had become a plant manager for Libbey in Findlay, Ohio. At this point in time, glass manufacturers in the United States had to blow glass to produce the bottles. This was a slow and tedious process. Owens sought to invent a machine that could manufacture glass bottles, rather than having to rely on skilled laborers, greatly speeding up the manufacturing process. On August 2, 1904, Owens patented a machine that could automatically manufacture glass bottles. This machine could produce four bottles per second. Owens’s invention revolutionized the glass industry. His machine also caused tremendous growth in the soft drink and beer industries, as these firms now had a less expensive way of packaging their products.

In 1903, after Owens had invented his bottle machine but before he had patented the invention, Owens formed the Owens Bottle Machine Company in Toledo. Libbey helped finance Owens’s company. This firm initially manufactured Owens’s bottle machine. By 1919, the firm had begun to manufacture bottles, and the company changed its name to the Owens Bottle Company. The company grew quickly, acquiring the Illinois Glass Company in 1929. The Owens Bottle Company became known as the Owens-Illinois Glass Company this same year. In 1965, the company changed its name one final time. It became and remains known as Owens-Illinois, Inc.

Owens retired in 1919. He did not live to see his company grow into such an important manufacturer of glass. He died on December 27, 1923, in Toledo, Ohio. Over the course of his life, Owens secured forty-five patents.

Here’s his biography from his Wikipedia page:

He was born in Mason County, West Virginia on January 1, 1859. He left school at the age of 10 to start a glassware apprenticeship at J. H. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company in Wheeling, West Virginia.

In 1888 he moved to Toledo, Ohio and worked for the Toledo Glass Factory owned by Edward Drummond Libbey. He was later promoted to foreman and then to supervisor. He formed the Owens Bottle Machine Company in 1903. His machines could produce glass bottles at a rate of 240 per minute, and reduce labor costs by 80%.

Owens and Libbey entered into a partnership and the company was renamed the Owens Bottle Company in 1919. In 1929 the company merged with the Illinois Glass Company to become the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.

To read more about Owens’ contributions, check out Michael Owens’ Glass Bottles Changed The World, by Scott S. Smith, Owens the Innovator at the University of Toledo, Today in Science, and the West Virginia Encyclopedia has a history of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.

Interesting World Maps

December 30, 2019 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

You probably knew I’m a huge map geek, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting ones. I came across a website recently boasting 100 Amazing World Maps. And while the headline may be a tad hyperbolic, some of them certainly are interesting. Here are a few that fell into that category for me. Check out the rest here if you also like this sort of thing. Enjoy.

Map of Alcohol Consumption Around the World

You’re probably not shocked to learn that Ireland, Russia, France and Germany are some of the countries that consume the most alcohol. But you may be surprised to learn that tiny Belarus consumes the most alcohol of all, with an average of 17.5 liters of pure alcohol consumed per capita every year.

Map of Drink of Choice Around the World

Looks like North and South Americans, as well as Australians, love their beer, while Asia, the Caribbean and Russia dig their spirits. Rice wine, rum and vodka, perhaps?

Map of Who Spends the Most on Booze

Ahem. Ireland?

Map of Coffee Consumption Around the World

Can’t live without your cuppa Joe in the morning? Looks like you’re not the only one! In some countries, such as those in (colder) Scandinavia, each person is drinking up to 26 pounds of coffee per year.

Map of the World’s Happiest People

It makes us smile to see a hemisphere filled with happiness!
Also, is anyone surprised that famously cordial Canada, free-spirited Australia and peaceful Scandinavia have some of the happiest locals on earth?

Map of Worldwide Tipping

Now before you go thinking a country is cheap, remember that they may pay higher wages so employees don’t need tips to make a living. (Unlike in America, which needs to get with the program.)

Map of Water Consumption Around the World

You may be surprised to learn the volume of water needed for the production of essential goods and services. This map brings the problem of water scarcity into sharp focus.

Map of Grapes Yielded by Country

Where, oh where, does your favorite wine get its grapes from?

Map of Craft Breweries in the U.S.

Think craft breweries have been popping up all around your state? You’re right, especially if you live in the western part of the country.

Map of Every Pub in the UK

You knew pubs were popular in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but did you know they were this popular? This map cannot even begin to show each and every one of the pubs, because there are more than 48,000!

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