Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. DE2808712A1: Plant To Manufacture Beer Wort By Hydrating Crushed Malt

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Today in 1979, US Patent DE 2808712 A1 was issued, an invention of Simon Redl, assigned to Anton Steinecker Maschinenfabrik, for his “Plant to Manufacture Beer Wort by Hydrating Crushed Malt — Introduces Water as Unbroken Film to Avoid Aeration of Product.” Here’s the Abstract:

The installation comprises a pressure roll mill for wet crushing brewers malt into a wort mixing chamber where a hydrator introduces additional water and an agitator mixes the milled malt and water. The hydrator is designed to introduce water in the form of a continuous, film which runs down a guiding surface extending into the wort mix. The guiding surface pref. extends alongside or beneath and for the full axial length of the mill rolls. The guiding surface is a side wall of the casing which forms the chamber containing the mill rolls and the agitator. Both walls are pref. employed as guiding surfaces. Water is pref. run on to the guiding surface from an adjustable width slot at the bottom of a supply pocket. The guiding surface pref. form one edge of the slot which has a width of 0.5-5.0., (1.5-3.0) mm. The hydrator offers faster and more homogeneous mixing in of water than single exit water inspectors. Undesirable aeration of the wort is held to an absolute minimum which was not possible with spray injectors.

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Patent No. 504610A: Barrel Registering Machine

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Today in 1893, US Patent 504610 A was issued, an invention of Andrew W. Oppmann, for his “Barrel Registering Machine.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:

This invention relates to machines for registering barrels, half barrels, and kegs, the nature and objects of which will fully appear from the subjoined description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, in Which- Figure l is a perspective view of my new registering machine as seen arranged over an elevator, for receiving the barrels from below. Fig. 2 is a like perspective view of the same as seen for receiving the barrels through an opening in a well from a room on the same floor. Fig. 3 is a view of an office or room located above or in another part of the building having electric bells connected with the machine for the purpose of announcing the delivery and registration of barrels or kegs by the said machine.

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Patent No. 3526510A: Beer Foam Adhesion

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Today in 1970, US Patent 3526510 A was issued, an invention of John B. Bockelmann, Leonard Raymond and William Tirado, assigned to the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Co. for their “Beer Foam Adhesion.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:

The present invention relates to a novel method of enhancing so-called foam cling in certain beers or the like, as hereinafter more specifically set forth.

The use, as additive, of the heptyl ester or the octyl ester of para-hydroxy-benzoic acid, as such or in the form of an alkali metal salt or alkaline earth metal salt thereof, as a chemical pasteurizer for-“beer (cf. US. Pat. No. 3,232,766) has eliminated the necessity for conventional pasteurization as a means for preserving beer against undesired bacterial growth. However, the presence of the said additive in beer is bound up with a drawback in that the normal foam produced by the pouring of the beer into a glass no longer has the adhesion or cling which is generally associated with beer quality and which is produced by conventional pasteurized or draft beer.

Various agents are known for achieving good adhesion to the sides of the glass from beer containing the aforesaid additives. However, these are bound up with one disadvantage or another. Elimination of the additive agents results in a beer foam that rapidly wipes the glass clean, leaving no beer foam cling and imparting, from the standpoint of those who equate beer foam cling with good quality and good appearance, an inis a desideratum in the art of making paraban-pasteurized finished beer to provide an additive which is free from any disadvantage or undesired drawback and which imparts to the beer containing heptyl or octyl ester of para-hydroxy benzoic acid the capacity of forming, upon being poured into a glass, a normal foam of good stability and good cling (sometimes referred to as curtain formation).

A primary object of the present invention is the realization of the aforesaid desideratum. Briefly stated, this is achieved according to the present invention by the expedient of incorporating into beer which has been paraben-pasteurized an appropriate and effective amount of, as foam stabilizer and curtain former, one or more of .(a) sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate (cf. US. Pat. No. 2,441,341); (b) sodium dihexyl sulfosuccinate;- (c) sodium diamyl sulfosuccinate; (d) disodium N-octadecyl sulfosuccinamate (cf. US. Pat. No. 2,252,401); and (e) tetrasodium N-(1,2-dicarboxyethyl)-N-octadecylsulfosuccinamate (cf. US. Pat. No. 2,438,092).

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Patent No. WO2008101298A1: Brewing Apparatus And Method

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Today in 2008, US Patent WO 2008101298 A1 was issued, an invention of Allan K. Wallace, assigned to Coopers Brewery Limited, for his “Brewing Apparatus and Method.” Here’s the Abstract:

The specification discloses brewing apparatus and a method for testing for end of fermentation of a fermenting brew. It has been determined that, once fermentation is complete, the temperature of a brew (such as beer) shows a tendency to stratify in horizontal layers. However, the activity of fermentation disrupts the tendency of the brew to stratify. Accordingly, the brewing apparatus comprises at least two temperature sensors positioned to measure a temperature difference between the temperature at a first height of the brew and the temperature at a second height of the brew. End of fermentation is identified if the temperature difference is greater than a threshold difference.

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Ballantine’s Literary Ads: C. S. Forester

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Between 1951 and 1953, P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company, or simply Ballentine Beer, created a series of ads with at least thirteen different writers. They asked each one “How would you put a glass of Ballantine Ale into words?” Each author wrote a page that included reference to their beer, and in most cases not subtly. One of them was C. S. Forester, who’s best known for his Horatio Hornblower novels.

Today is the birthday of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (August 27, 1899–April 2, 1966), who wrote under the nom de plume Cecil Scott or “C. S.” Forester. He “was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic wars. Two of the Hornblower books, A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours, were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1938. His other works include The African Queen (1935) and The General (1936).” His Ballantine ad ran in 1952.

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His piece for Ballantine was done in the form of a letter reminiscing about first beers he’d tried doing his travels, including Ballantine the first time he came to New York City:

There’s always a first time for everything, and I still remember my first Ballantine Ale.

I had ordered my first “kleines hells” in Munich, my first Bock in Paris. As a rather bewildered young man in New York, I did a two-hour sight-seeing tour before being shipped to Hollywood, and in the half-hour before my train was to go, I had my first Ballantine Ale.

So my first recollection of Ballantine is linked with the Port of New York, the Empire State Building, and Grand Central Station. All of them were different from anything that had ever come into my experience — and all of them great.

Even then, I realized that the flavor of Ballantine Ale was unique. I thought it better than any brew I had met in Europe’s most famous beer gardens. I still do.

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Patent No. 20110206487A1: Keg Handling Equipment

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Today in 2011, US Patent 20110206487 A1 was issued, an invention of Terry George Morgan, for his “Keg Handling Equipment.” Here’s the Abstract:

A keg conveying trolley has a pair of wheels, a central post and a slide which carries a hook for grasping the keg rim. The slide is lockable at different keg heights. A foot plate assists in tipping the trolley to an inclined position for wheeling the keg from one place to another. The keg stacking version has a winch worked by hand or a cordless drill. The keg is supported by a rise and fall carriage. The carriage can be modified to be multitask. Variants can lift gas bottles on their side, truck tires for placing on wheel studs and odd shaped loads.

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Inside Guinness August 22, 1953

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In England, the Picture Post was the equivalent of Life magazine here in the U.S. It “was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months.”

On August 22, 1953, one of the photographers for the Picture Post — Bert Hardy — visited Dublin, Ireland, and was permitted inside the Guinness brewery at St. James Gate. I’m not sure how many photos he took, but recently Mashable featured twenty-two of them. Here are a few of them below, it’s a great glimpse into the past, and to see all of them, follow the instructions below.

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Workers drain beer from a mash tun.

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Workers watch as yeast is skimmed off the top of the beer before it is passed to vats for maturing.

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A worker fills casks in the racking shed.

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Workers at the Guinness brewery at St. James’s Gate in Dublin.

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Workers hose down casks.

You can see all 22 of them below, or visit Mashable.

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Patent No. 3685508A: Tank Construction

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Today in 1972, US Patent 3685508 A was issued, an invention of Le Roy W. Heilmann, for his “Tank Construction.” Here’s the Abstract:

A tank bottom having spaced inner and outer members, said inner member being made of relatively thin material having good heat transfer, said spaced inner and outer members forming part of a pressure chamber for heating the contents of said tank, said pressure chamber being subjected to relatively high pressures and temperatures, said inner bottom having strengthening means connected to the outer surface thereof, said strengthening means not being connected to said outer member, said inner member being strong enough to hold the contents of the tank but not strong enough to withstand the cyclical pressures within the pressure chamber over a period of use without said strengthening means.

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Patent No. 656418A: Device For Drawing Steam Beer

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Today in 1900, US Patent 656418 A was issued, an invention of James O’Connor, for his “Device For Drawing Steam Beer, Etc.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:

My invention relates to an apparatus which is designed for drawing liquids under pressure; but it is especially useful when connected with casks containing what is known as steam-beer or beer in which carbonic acid gas is contained to produce a high pressure and head within the cask.

It consists of connections between one or more casks and a distributing-chamber and connections between said chamber and a cylinder containing a piston which is reciprocable within the cylinder, so that when beer is admitted into the cylinder the piston will be moved toward the opposite end until the de sired amount of beer has been admitted, which is shown by a suitable recording device. The beer is drawn from the cylinder through a discharge-cock, and the gas in the beer is so diffused and caused to escape from the beer that little or no foam results when it is drawn from the cylinder. A second cylinder in line with the first contains a piston, the piston-rod connecting the pistons in both cylinders, so that they move in unison. A four-way cock is interposed between the cylinders, and water under pressure is brought through this cock and allowed to enter the second cylinder while the beer is entering the first and the cock is turned so as to allow the water to escape from this cylinder and to enter the first cylinder to return the piston therein to its normal position after the boot has been drawn.

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