Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 2260958A: Beer Cooler

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Today in 1941, US Patent 2260958 A was issued, an invention of Albert R. Tomson, for his “Beer Cooler.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates generally to a cooling and dispensing apparatus for carbonated beverages and is particularly designed for advantageous use as ‘a direct draw box for beer.

One of the objects of the. invention is to provide an apparatus of this character which is designed and adapted to use ice as the cooling or refrigerating medium and which cools the beer to any temperature at which beer can be sold with satisfaction and yet provide for the drawing of a glass of beer Without the use of rubber or block tin coil connections for the beer to flow through before it reaches the glass. The beer flows from the barrel or keg directly through the tap rod and faucet to the glass.

Another object of the invention is to provide a cooling and dispensing apparatus of this character and having these advantages and which is simple and durable in construction, reliable and efficient in operation, attractive in appearance, convenient in use, and susceptible of comparatively inexpensive manufacture.

Another object of the invention is to provide a cooling and dispensing apparatus of this character in which provision is made for cooling the beer in the tap rod and tap fitting and incidentally also cooling the head of the keg or barrel.

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Patent No. D36124S: Design For A Drinking Vessel

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Today in 1902, US Patent D36124 S was issued, an invention of Louis Bessiere, for his “Design For A Drinking Vessel.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

My design is illustrated in the accompanying drawing, referred to herein, which shows a drinking: vessel with the design thereon. The piece A consists of three ornaments composed of curved lines connected by a small transverse bar at the center. The ornamental leaves is repeated a number of times to form a continuous band or border extending around the vessel.

The body X of the vessel is otherwise plain and rounded at the bottom. It is supported by a slender stem X, terminating at the disk shaped base The shape of the vessel, however, is not new, and it will be apparent that the ornamentation above described may be placed on differently-shaped vessels.

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Beer In Ads #1721: Pssst!

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Tuesday’s ad is another one for Heineken. I think it’s a fairly recent ad, but I’m really not sure, though I suspect it can’t be any older than the 1980s. It’s done in the style of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, whose birthday is today. Showing a bottle of Heineken popping open, with his trademark comic book style, and a satisfying “pssst” as it opens.

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SABInMillerBev, or “A Brief History Of Big Beer”

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Niall, at the Missing Drink, has an interesting post about the possible buyout of SABMiller by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Entitled A Brief History of Big Beer, he provides some analysis of the deal, but I especially like his helpful chart of the M&A of all the major players, which is below. It’s great to see them laid out to encapsulate the history of those big deals, especially in recent decades.

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Click here to see the chart full size.

Here’s his clever take on what the newly minted entity might be called, and what a new alphabet soup logo might look like. It was genius taking the “AB” from ABI and putting it with the “S” from SAB. It certainly will be interesting to see what new name (and logo) does emerge if the deal ultimately goes through.

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Beer Birthday: Richard Brewer-Hay

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Today is the 40th birthday of Richard Brewer-Hay, co-founder (with his wife Allie) and brewer of San Francisco’s smallest almost brewery: the Elizabeth Street Brewery. Despite its size (it’s really more of a nanobrewery or even a picobrewery) and intermittent schedule, it was named three years ago by SF Weekly as San Francisco’s Best Microbrewery 2010. I thought I had a photo of Richard and Allie from when I ran into them at the Map Room in Chicago during CBC a few years ago, but I guess not. Instead, I purloined the photos below from Facebook. Join me in wishing Richard a very happy birthday.

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Given it was Richard’s tweet from the World Series that reminded me it was his birthday, here’s him at the first game of the World Series two years ago.

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A self-portrait with his wife, Allie, in the Cascades in Washington a few years ago.

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With Jabber the Parrot at eBay On Location in San Jose.

Below is a very, very short video I captured of Richard and Nico Freccia, from 21st Amendment, accepting their World Beer Cup award for the beer Richard and Shaun O’Sullivan made at 21A in Chicago.

Beer In Ads #1720: Wees ‘N Man!

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Monday’s ad is for Heineken, from the 1950s. From what I can figure from using Google Translate, this ad ran in South Africa, because the language of it is Afrikaans. It seems to be something like: “Be a man! Drink a glass of spicy Amstel Beer.” It’s a strange ad, showing an attractive woman holding up a glass of beer, almost taunting us with “be a man!” The proportions of the illustration, however, look a little off when you examine them closely, giving them more of a cartoon-like feel.

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Patent No. 7819286B2: Beer Keg And Method Of Assembly

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Today in 2010, US Patent 7819286 B2 was issued, an invention of William L. Antheil and Nelson Bolton, assigned to Kegx LLC, for their “Beer Keg and Method Of Assembly.” Here’s the Abstract:

A container, or keg, for storing, shipping, and dispensing a bulk quantity of a fluid, for example, beer or like malt beverage, is provided. The container/keg includes a flaccid bag (56) for containing the fluid and a substantially rigid, pressure-tight, plastic vessel (10) within which the bag (56) is contained. The bag (56) has a mouth (58) secured with a locking ring or the like to an opening in the vessel (10) via which the mouth (58) is accessible externally of the vessel (10) for purposes of filling the bag (56) with the fluid and/or dispensing the fluid from the bag (56). Preferably, the shape of the vessel (10) permits it to be efficiently stacked and shipped when in a full or empty condition. Methods for assembling, filling and shipping kegs are also provided.

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Patent No. EP0138341B1: Beer And Other Beverages And Their Manufacture

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Today in 1988, US Patent EP 0138341 B1 was issued, an invention of Charles William Bamforth and Roy Cope, assigned to the Bass Public Limited Company, for their “Beer and Other Beverages and Their Manufacture.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to beer and other beverages and to their manufacture. In particular the invention is concerned with the incorporation into a beverage of an additive enabling the beverage to have a head formed on it or to improve the quality of the head that can be formed on it.

The invention is primarily applicable to beer, and the term beer is used herein to designate generally any of a variety of alcoholic beverages made by the fermentation of hopped malt wort; it thus includes within its scope ales, lagers and stouts. Beer itself is normally dispensed with a head, but there are also other beer-like beverages that are, like beer, bright and without haze and that are normally dispensed with a head to which the invention is also particularly applicable, these including beverages which include little or no alcohol but otherwise resemble beer quite closely.

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Their claims for the patent are also listed as follows:

1. A method of modifying or improving beer or other beverage, the beverage being bright and without haze, which method comprises the step of incorporating in the beverage concerned an additive enabling the beverage to have a head formed on it or to improve the quality of the head that can be formed on it, the additive comprising protein fragments made by the partial hydrolysis of protein material, and the method being characterised in that the protein material comprises egg albumen and is added in an effective amount to improve or cause head formation without inducing haze formation.

2. A method according to claim 1 characterised in that the additive is formed as an aqueous solution.

3. A method according to claim 2 characterised in that the additive also contains a minor addition of ethyl alcohol.

4. A method according to any one of the preceding claims characterised in that the additive comprises fragments of protein material separated from any remaining unsevered protein material.

5. A method according to any one of the preceding claims characterised in that the beverage is made by a process including a fermentation stage and in which the additive is added at a stage later than the fermentation stage.

6. A method according to claim 5 characterised in that the beverage is beer.

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Patent No. 592295A: Bung And Faucet

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Today in 1897, US Patent 592295 A was issued, an invention of George C. Kaohel and Henry Sager, for their “Bung and Faucet.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to new and useful Improvement in Bungs and Faucets, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

without destroying the keg or cask, as frequently occurs under the old process, the faucet employed being particularly adapted for this purpose.

A further object of the invention is to provide a bushing and barrel to receive the faucet so constructed that the kegs or casks will be practically as clean when returned to the brewery as when taken therefrom, since all the liquid may be drained from the receptacle.

The invention consists in the novel construction and combination of the several parts, as will be hereinafter fully set forth, and pointed out in the claims.

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Beer In Ads #1719: Best Picnic In A Month Of Sun Days

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Sunday’s ad is for Falstaff, from the 1960. I figured the “Best picnic in a month of Sun days” would have to be on a Sunday. The other tagline is “Good Times are better with Light, Refreshing Falstaff.” Picnicing by the side of a stream, it looks like they’re having a good time. But it’s a little racy for 1960, with the woman hiking up her skirt to stay dry as one of the men in the scene tries to steal her beer.

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