Today in 1956, US Patent 2749930 A was issued, an invention of Sumner T. Whitnall, for his “Apparatus For Dispensing Beer.” There’s no Abstract, though it’s described this way in the application:

The invention provides a solution .to the problems of dispensing from a number of barrels or other containers sequentially and facilitating replacement or interchange of empty or partially filled containers. The desired results are achieved by a tapping rod assembly which is applied to each of the several containers, each, such assembly having dispensing and pressure and transfer connections, the latter connection leading through the upper portion of the rod, but opening through a side portion thereof. above the level of the beer in the container to which beer is being transferred from a preceding container. By delivering the transferred beer (or gas, from empty barrels) at or above the level of the beer in the receiving container, I avoid turbulence, this being an important factor which makes the device of this invention. a success where other attempts to solve these problems have failed.

As the transferred beer is applied at or above the level of the beer in the receiving container, under pressure of gas applied to another container in the series, the beer in the receiving container is expelled through the rod from the bottom of the receiving container in substantially the same way as if the pressure had been applied directly to the surface of the beer in the container from which the beer is dispensed to the faucet.

Today in 1878, US Patent 204687 A was issued, an invention of Henry Shlaudeman, for his “Improvement in Safety-Valves for Fermented-Liquor Casks.” There’s no Abstract, though it’s described this way in the application:

The object of my invention is to produce a safety-valve to be placed upon storage-casks, hogsheads, &c., in which malt and other fermenting or fermented liquors are placed in stock viz., before drawing into vessels for consumption or sale-and is constructed so that the weighted valve will be raised automatically if more than a certain quantity of carbonic-acid gas is generated, and allow said gas to escape without exposing the liquors to the open air, and by thus excluding the air stopping fermentation at a fixed degree, and preventing the bursting of the cask or hogshead, the device inclosing a weighted valve that shall have a fixed and definite capacity of retaining the gases.