Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 3545475A: Tap Assembly

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Today in 1970, US Patent 3545475 A was issued, another invention of Marlow W. Dodge and Arthur L. Johnson Jr., for their “Tap Assembly.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

A tap for tapping an initially sealed keg of draft beer and including a draw tube, a gas tube, a tap body, and a coupling constructed as a unitary assembly, the draw tube remaining in the same position relative to the tap body before, during and after tapping of the keg. A yieldable sealing membrane in a plug in the tap hole of the keg is punctured as the draw tube is inserted into the keg, and then seals around the gas tube to establish an automatic seal between the tap and the plug. A taper at the lower end of the tap body wedges into the plug to hold the tap body and the tubes on the keg.

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AleSmith Partners With Mikkeller

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AleSmith Brewing of San Diego, California announced this morning that they’ve entered into a “creative enterprise” with Mikkel Borg Bjergsø to establish Mikkeller Brewing,” taking over day-to-day operation of San Diego’s second-oldest craft brewing facility. So essentially, as far as I can tell, Mikkel will be taking over the original AleSmith location, with Pete Zien retaining a minority stake in the business. Mikkel will get the older, original 30-barrel brewing system — which will become Mikkeller San Diego — and AleSmith will operate the newer 105,500-square-foot facility located two blocks west of MSD.

San Diego, California (December 8, 2015) — Two world-renowned brewing interests are proud to announce the launch of a creative partnership that will result in the planet’s most famous gypsy brewer acquiring a brick-and-mortar brewery to call his own. Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, the founder and creative mind behind Denmark-based Mikkeller, has officially entered into an agreement with AleSmith Brewing Company owner and brewmaster Peter Zien for the duo to establish a new company called Mikkeller Brewing San Diego. Bjergsø and Zien will possess ownership stakes in the business, which will be based within the storied confines of AleSmith’s original headquarters on Cabot Drive in San Diego’s Miramar community and produce beers for worldwide release.

“People have always asked me when I’m going to open my own brewery, and my answer has always been ‘never.’ It’s the easiest answer, but it’s been on my mind for several years,” says Bjergsø. “I like being a ‘gypsy brewer,’ but know that having a stake in a U.S. brewery will change our position here. Brewing in one of the best breweries in the world really makes sense. If they can brew beers like they do at AleSmith, it really can’t go wrong.”

Bjergsø’s vision will guide brewing operations at Mikkeller San Diego, which is equipped with the same 30-barrel brewing system AleSmith used to produce 15,000 barrels of beer annually before moving into a much larger, 105,500-square-foot facility two blocks west earlier this year. To ensure the fastest, most efficient transition, Zien will initially oversee multiple components of the brewing process and provide ongoing assistance on an as-needed basis. Additionally, several members of AleSmith’s original brewing team, the bulk of whose careers with the company have been spent operating the original brewery, will become employees of Mikkeller San Diego and usher the facility through its exciting second life.

“I am very excited to announce this partnership to the brewing world,” says Zien who will maintain a minority stake in the business. “Mikkel and I expect to create unique and flavorful beers of the highest quality, as we are both known for brewing with AleSmith and Mikkeller.”

Eager to embark on this shared next chapter in their brewing careers, Bjergsø and Zien worked with the eventual Mikkeller San Diego staff to craft two beers based off brand new recipes conceived by the former. Those beers, AleSmith-Mikkeller IPA (India Pale Ale) and AleSmith-Mikkeller APA (American Pale Ale) are currently on tap at Mikkeller Bar in San Francisco, Calif.; AleSmith’s recently debuted 25,000-square-foot Miramar tasting room; and numerous craft beer-centric venues throughout San Diego County. Thus far, they have been met positively by beer enthusiasts. Next up on the brew schedule is an imperial take on an English-style porter, which will be released via a similar distribution method. Eventually, numerous Mikkeller San Diego beers will be bottled, canned, and distributed more widely nationally and internationally.

In addition to beers brewed solely by Mikkeller San Diego personnel, Bjergsø intends to make a center of craft collaboration of his new digs by inviting respected brewers from all over the world to conceive and brew recipes that push the envelopes of what ales and lagers can be. In doing so, he will build off relationships forged during his decade spent trotting the globe in an ongoing mission to bring his beery ideas to life with the help of gifted brewers the world over. He will also reach out to new and upcoming brewers making waves within the industry, providing the basis for many happy returns among brewery visitors.

While the brewing component of Mikkeller San Diego’s campus—which consists of five suites within an intimate business complex—will remain mostly untouched, construction will soon commence to convert the 750-square-foot tasting room to an interior design concept more consistent with that of Mikkeller’s global beer bars. The sampling space is projected to open to the public in early 2016, offering an array of beers that simultaneously display traditionally stylistic roots while coming across as exploratory, adventurous and, in some cases, downright twisted. It will be the only place in the world to taste the entire array of Mikkeller San Diego beers in a single sitting.

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Matt Brynildson, from Firestone Walker, and Mikkel comparing beards with Sir Thomas Gresham at a pub in London.

Patent No. 2916421A: Straining Tank

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Today in 1959, US Patent 2916421 A was issued, another invention of Robert C. Gadsby, Joseph Schwaiger and Frank H. Schwaiger, assigned to Anheuser Busch, for their “Straining Tank.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to a straining tank or grain extractor or lauter tub, and more particularly to a new type of straining tank for use in the brewing industry to remove extract from brewers grains.

One of the principal objects of the present invention is to increase the efficiency of the extraction of soluble substances from material within a straining tank. Another object is to provide a’straining tank with the shortest exposure and contact time between the wort and grains and between the sparge water and the grains which have substances extracted therefrom, thereby extracting less of the undesired substances from the husks of the grains. This results in a cleaner and milder flavor for the resulting wort. Another object is to eliminate the mechanical agitator formerly required and avoid the formation of channels which the numerous knife .blades previously cut into the grain bed.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a straining tank which is relatively small and inexpensive compared to those lauter tubs and mash filters presently used to remove extracts from grains. Another object is to increase .the capacity for removing extracts from grains in a brewing operation, thereby increasing the capacity of the brewery. Another object is to provide a straining device which requires less time per batch and allows more brews per day. Another object is to provide for the fast removal of spent grains from a straining tank which can then be easily and rapidly cleaned.

Still another object is to provide a device which has a smaller initial cost and which requires fewer operators than previously required to efficiently operate a straining tank or mash filter.

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Beer In Ads #1752: Pabst, Chicken & Fries

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Monday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1954. That’s some seriously greasy looking fried chicken, and the fries don’t look much better. Still, it makes me hungry to look at it. And we’ve got another one of those magic bottles, the kind that fills the entire glass to overflowing, but is still only half empty.

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Beer & Exercise

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Last week, the New York Times had an interesting piece about a pair of studies examining the relationship between exercise and beer, entitled The Close Ties Between Exercise and Beer.

My favorite bit is that in past studies “men and women who qualified as moderate drinkers, meaning they downed about a drink a day, were twice as likely to exercise regularly as teetotalers.” But that was for earlier, apparently less rigorous studies.

The first of the new studies was conducted at Penn State, which used test subjects already enrolled in a different health study, and found consistent results from the earlier studies.

When the researchers collated and compared the data from their volunteers, they found, for the first time, an unequivocal correlation between exercising on any given day and subsequently drinking, especially if someone exercised more than usual. As the scientists write in their study, which was published recently in Health Psychology, “people drank more than usual on the same days that they engaged in more physical activity than usual.”

This relationship held true throughout all seasons of the year and whether someone was a man or a woman, a collegian or a retiree. Age and gender did not affect the results.

Thankfully, the data did not show that exercise incited or exacerbated problem drinking.

The second study was published in Frontiers of Psychiatry — Exercise and Alcohol Consumption: What We Know, What We Need to Know, and Why it is Important — was a review of those previously mentioned previous studies. And the two seem to reinforce one another, coming to the same conclusions. And most worrying of all, at least for the prohibitionists who incessantly decry alcohol, “the available evidence suggests that exercise may encourage people to drink, [but] it does not indicate that this relationship is necessarily worrisome for the vast majority of us. Someone who drinks moderately is unlikely to become a problem drinker as a result of exercise.”

So moderately drink up, and keep working out, apparently both are good for you.

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Patent No. 3625843A: Method For Treating Beer

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Today in 1971, US Patent 3625843 A was issued, another invention of Heinz Doevenspeck, for his “Method For Treating Beer.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

It is an object of the present invention to develop this prior art method and, in particular, to render it applicable with advantage to the treatment of liquids, preferably of beer. The method is intended to be developed in a manner as to enable the same to be carried out at temperatures of only about 25 C, thereby to prevent changes in flavor and color of the liquids to be treated and to obtain, at the same time, pasteurization and/or sterilization as well as stabilization of the liquids for the purpose of increasing the durability thereof.

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Patent No. 2336280A: Hop Cluster Stemmer

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Today in 1943, US Patent 2336280 A was issued, another invention of George E. Miller, for his “Hop Cluster Stemmer.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to hop picking machines.

Hops grow on vines which are trained vertically on strings attached .to’ horizontal wires suspended about eighteen feet above the ground. At harvest time the vines are pulled down and hauled to a plant where they are run through a machine which picks the hops from the vines. The picked hops are then separated from the leaves, etc.

From the time the vine is pulled down in the hop field to the time it is fed into the picking machine, it receives considerable handling in the course of which clusters become detached from the vine. A cluster comprises an arm or branch of the vine bearing a cluster of hops. Heretofore the only satisfactory way to salvage the hops on these clusters was to pick them off by hand-an expensive, laborious task.

The object of this invention is to provide a machine for doing this work.

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Beer In Ads #1751: Bear’s Black Label Football

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Sunday’s ad is for Carling Black Label, from 1951. It looks like it was probably the back cover of a program for a football game, though it’s fairly low key, soft sell, just showing a bear playing football. The only hint that it’s a beer ad is the bear’s scarf, flapping in the wind as he rushes for a touchdown.

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Patent No. 2139029A: Hop Picking Machine

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Today in 1938, US Patent 2139029 A was issued, an invention of George E. Miller, for his “Hop Picking Machine.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to a hop picking machine, and especially to improvements in the construction and operation thereof.

The object of the present invention is generally 5 to improve and simplify the construction and operation of hop picking machines; to provide a machine which will not only pick or remove the hops from the vines, but also from arms and clusters broken and pulled off the vines during the picking operation; to provide a machine which employs belts and cooperating drums mounted above them, said belts and cooperating drums .being provided with picking fingers which comb a the vines from opposite sides to remove the hops; to provide an endless flexible diamond-‘ meshed wire screen belt which is disposed below the picking belts, and cooperates therewith, to pick arms and break up clusters; to provide a machine which is divided into two picking zones, 80 one zone’in which the picking fingers are comparatively widely separated and where the major portion of the hops are removed, and a second zone in which the picking fingers are closely spaced to strip the vines of the remaining hops; to provide a picking machine which provides almost immediate liberation or removal of the hops from the picking zones, so as to prevent damage or breakage of the hops after they have been removed from the vines by the picking fingers; to provide a picking machine which tends to flatten out and spread the vines as they pass through and between the picking fingers. so as to insure a more thorough picking or removal of the hops; to provide means for separating the hops from leaves which are accidentally removed during the picking operation; and further, to provide means for automatically releasing and removing the vines from the machine when picked.

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