Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 1991264A: Beer Dispensing And Carbonating Apparatus

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Today in 1935, US Patent 1991264 A was issued, an invention of Jesse F. Thomas and Claud R. Brown, for their “Beer Dispensing and Carbonating Apparatus.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

What is claimed: 1. A device of the class described comprising single fitting, said fitting having an inlet passage and an outlet passage, a pipe extending from one of said p through the other passage, fastening means on the pipe preventing downward displacement from the fitting, and cutting it direct communication between the passages, a pipe about the first mentioned pipe in communication with the other passage, means supported by the rest mentioned pipe at` its lower end in supporting contact with the second mentioned pipe and ports through one of said pipes and said means for discharge and intake purposes.

2. A device of the class described comprising a single fitting, pipes depending therefrom and spaced one within the other, the innermost pipe being a discharge pipe, fastening means at the upper end of the inner pipe preventing removal thereof downwardly from the fitting, the outermost pipe terminating below the upper end of spaced one within the other, the innermost pipe being a discharge pipe, fastening means at the upper end of the inner pipe preventing removal thereof downwardly from the fitting, the outermost pipe terminating below the upper end of the innermost pipe and providing passages between the same and the other pipe for the inlet of gas, a thimble extending into and supporting the outermost pipe at the lower end and into which the innermost pipe is screw-threaded, and said thimble having inlet passages communicating with the interior of the innermost pipe, the outermost pipe having outlet portions for gas communicating with the passages between the pipes, valve-controlled outlet means on the fitting contacting with the discharge end of the innermost pipe, said fitting having a chamber communicating with said passages between the pipes, and an inlet valve structure for the last mentioned chamber.

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Beer In Ads #1818: Bismarck — The “Greatest Of The Germans”

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Thursday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1914, No. 1 in another series they did in 1914-15 called the “National Heroes Series.” The first one features Otto von Bismarck, who “was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states, significantly and deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership.” They also noted his love of liberty, and how much he would have hated “the insolent tyranny of the most odious kind” that would tell its citizens “Thou shalt NOT eat this — thou shalt NOT drink that.”

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Patent No. EP0823384A1: Beer Keg Cap

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Today in 1998, US Patent EP 0823384 A1 was issued, an invention of Baswinder Singh Dhillon, for his “Beer Keg Cap.” Here’s the Abstract:

A beer keg cap 10 comprises a continuous cup shaped member to receive the neck of the beer keg. The cup shaped member comprises a top 12 and a depending skirt 14. The skirt 14 includes lines of weakness 20 extending upwardly from its lower edge to provide tamper evidence by breaking. The cap 10 further includes a plurality of inwardly directed tabs 16, to engage under the neck of a beer keg. The tabs 16 are elongate in the circumferential direction.

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Patent No. 1052704A: Beer-Package

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Today in 1913, US Patent 1052704 A was issued, an invention of Robert E. Wenzel and William M. Shouler, for their “Beer-Package.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

Our invention particularly relates toA a package adapted to be to receive draft beer, or beer drawn from the original wood package.

One object of our invention is to provide a package into which draft beer can be drawn from the original cask and from which ,such beer can be again drawn in quantities desired without allowing the beer. within the package to part with the carbonic acid gas contained therein, thereby keeping the beer fresh and in the same` condition as when drawn from the original keg or cask.

Another object of our invention is to projections adapted to form hand holds to venable the cover to be screwed from or on to the beer package.

Another object of our invention is to provide a beer package which when serving all the purposes above stated will be provided with a convenient handle which can be folded out of the way when the package is not being carried.

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Beer In Ads #1817: Robert Morris — “Financier Of The Revolution”

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Wednesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1915, No. 10 in a series they did in 1914-15 called “Framers of the Constitution of the U.S.A.” The tenth one features Robert Morris, who apparently used his personal fortune to pay for part of the revolution. He also signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And like the rest of the men in this series, “he was ever a moderate drinking of light wines and barley brews and opposed Prohibition Laws, which make the many suffer for the faults of the few.”

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Pizza Hut To Offer Beer Selection

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Last month, The Street reported that the Pizza Hut chain has remodeled several of their 6,000+ restaurants, and “plans to remodel roughly 700 of its U.S. stores a year through 2022 in the new format.” The newly refurbished Pizza Huts will continue to have the company’s ” trademark red and black colors, albeit with deeper hues” and will also “feature wraparound windows, outdoor seating and yes, a drive-thru.”

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All well and good, so far, but so what, you may be asking. Pizza Hut has also added beer and wine service at the remodeled locations, and plans to add alcohol to each refurbished restaurant. Frankly, I didn’t realize they didn’t serve beer already. Pizza and beer are pretty much a perfect pairing, as iconic as peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese and tomato soup. The more I think about it, almost every pizza place I can name also serves beer, both chains and the small mom and pop pizza joints. How many brewpubs serve pizza? Lots of them, with many even specializing in it.

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Why I bring this up is because the wackos at Alcohol Justice tweeted their displeasure at this idea, with this. “Now Pizza Hut wants to sell booze too bit.ly/1PkIwe1 What’s next…wine tastings at Toys-R-Us?” That’s what’s known as a false equivalence, one does not follow from the other. It is, in effect, a bullshit argument. One is a restaurant, and a type of restaurant that typically does carry beer and wine. The other is a toy store. There’s no link whatsoever, nothing that would make this in any way logical. It’s AJ making a mountain out a molehill, as they so often try to do. It’s just absurd.

They idea that a pizza restaurant serving beer and wine is cause for alarm is absolutely laughable. It’s harder to think of one that doesn’t already serve beer then come up with all of those who do. Several times I’ve gone with Porter’s basketball team and his little league baseball team to a Mountain Mike’s or Straw Hat Pizza after a game with the whole team and their parents. Many pizzas are ordered for everyone, with pitchers of beer for the parents. That’s the very definition of family-friendly, with something for everyone. Not once has there been a problem. But in AJ’s worldview, beer at a pizza joint with beer is the same as booze being served at a toy store. But now I’m feeling hungry. I’ve got plenty of beer. I wonder if it’s too late to order from Pizza Hut? They just opened one in our town, and I definitely want to support their decision to upset Alcohol Justice.

Patent No. 5716850A: Monitoring The Colour And Bitterness Of Beer

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Today in 1998, US Patent 5716850 A was issued, an invention of Gurinder Takhar and Mandy King, assigned to Whitbread PLC, for their “Monitoring the Colour And Bitterness of Beer.” Here’s the Abstract:

A method of determining one or both of the colour and bitterness of beer by illuminating the beer with light of a pre-determined wavelength, typically 400±30 nm, to cause iso-α-acids in the beer to fluoresce. The fluorescence is detected over a range of wavelengths, typically 420 to 673 nm, using a fluorescence spectrophotometer. One or both of the colour and bitterness of the beer is determined by comparing an output signal from the fluorescence spectrophotometer to output signals stored for beers of known colour and bitterness.

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Asahi Likely To Buy Grolsch, Meantime & Peroni

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Anhesuer-Busch InBev has been trying to sell off their Grolsch, Meantime and Peroni, since acquiring SABMiller last year. ABI confirmed this morning that they’ve received a binding offer to purchase the three beer brands from Japan’s Asahi Breweries. According to Just Drinks, “Asahi has been granted a ‘period of exclusivity’ related to the purchase, which, AB InBev flagged, is ‘conditional on the successful closing of the recommended acquisition of SABMiller by AB InBev.'” The amount offered by Asahi is 2.55 billion euros (around $2.86 billion in U.S. dollars) and which, if accepted, would go a long way toward addressing regulatory concerns about the acquisition of SABMiller by ABI. Reuters also has more about the particulars.

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The Asahi Breweries headquarters in Tokyo, from a trip I took there to judge a beer competition in 2013.

Beer In Ads #1816: Charles Carroll Of Carrollton — “Father Of Religious Liberty In America”

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Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1915, No. 9 in a series they did in 1914-15 called “Framers of the Constitution of the U.S.A.” The ninth one features Charles Carroll III, a.k.a. Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who was the only catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and was last remaining signator in 1832, when he finally died at age 95. His catholicism, apparently, made him a champion of religious liberty, and his hospitality “was nothing short of royal,” being “a lifetime user of light wines and barley brews.”

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Patent No. EP1412490A4: Mediating The Effects Of Alcohol Consumption By Orally Administering Active Dry Yeast

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Today in 2005, US Patent EP 1412490 A4 was issued, an invention of Joe Owades, for his “Mediating the Effects of Alcohol Consumption by Orally Administering Active Dry Yeast.” It seems to be virtually identical to Patent No. 2452476A1: Mediating The Effects Of Alcohol Consumption By Orally Administering Active Dry Yeast, which was issued to Owades two years before, on January 23, 2003. So if you’re feeling a sense of déjà vu, it’s not you. Here’s the short Abstract from the previous one. “A process for lowering blood alcohol levels in humans after they imbibe alcoholic beverages by administering active dry yeast before or concomitantly with the imbibing of the beverages.”

This is most likely the origin of the hangover prevention that Jim Koch, from the Boston Beer Co., has popularized over the years, but especially after Esquire magazine ran an article about it last April, How to Drink All Night Without Getting Drunk.

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The story got picked up by NPR, Serious Eats and even Snopes took a look at it.

But I’d actually heard Jim tell the story a couple of times at various events, most recently at a beer dinner last year at the Jamaica Plain brewery in Boston celebrating the 30th anniversary of Samuel Adams.

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In telling the story, Jim did, of course, mention that the idea came from Joe Owades, who had worked as a consultant with the Boston Beer Co. since the very beginning, and off and on thereafter. But I don’t think I’d realized before now that Joe had actually patented the idea.

The claim in the patent application describes it in a nutshell. “A method of mediating the effect of alcohol consumption by a person which comprises orally administering active dry yeast containing alcohol dehydrogenase to said person prior to or simultaneously with consumption of an alcohol-containing beverage, whereby to oxidize a portion of the alcohol while still in the stomach of said person.” His own testing of the method, shown in the figures below, found that “blood alcohol level-min. was reduced by 38% by the yeast.”

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