Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #1644: The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co.

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Monday’s ad is for The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co., from sometime after 1896 but before Prohibition. From what I can tell, while the brewery was founded in 1774, it wasn’t known as The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co. until 1896, when it acquired by C. Schmidt & Sons and operated as one of their divisions (although another source claims Schmidt’s took over the Robert Smith brewery in 1881). The casks stacked to the left in the ad each have a different beer printed in them, suggesting this was the line of beers offered by the brewery at the time of the ad. The beer’s listed are Tiger Head I.P.A., India Pale, Burton, English Pale, XXX, Old Musty, Brown Stout and Imperial Burton. Only Tiger Head I.P.A. and the Brown Stout also have “Bottling” printed in smaller letters at the bottom of the head of the cask, so I suspect those were the two beers they may have offered in bottles.

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R.I.P. Fred Eckhardt 1926-2015

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I just learned from my friend, and Belmont Station owner, Lisa Morrison that legendary beer writer Fred Eckhardt has passed away. Apparently he died peacefully in his sleep this morning, with a few caregivers by his side.

Portland native Eckhardt was 89, and was a pioneer in writing about and defining beer styles with his early book on the subject, The Essentials of Beer Style, published in 1989. Annually in Portland, the FredFest beer festival has been held since his 80th birthday to honor Fred and his contributions to the modern beer and homebrewing scene. As Lisa observed. “He was one of the giants on whose shoulders we stand. What a life he lived, what he gave to us all.” He will be greatly missed. Join beer lovers everywhere as we raise a toast to Fred’s memory and to his enduring legacy tonight.

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Fred in 1969, from the back cover of his book, A Treatise on Lager Beers.


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Fred Eckhardt and me at the Great American Beer Festival in 2005.

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Fred with Lisa Morrison.

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Alan Sprints, of Hair of the Dog Brewery, with Fred Eckhardt, at Hair of the Dog’s open house in 2008 during OBF.

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Fred with Lisa and John Foyston at OBF in 2009.

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Fred and me at the OBF parade in 2011.

Patent No. 1149256A: Bottle-Filling Device

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Today in 1954, US Patent 1149256 A was issued, an invention of Joseph H. Godfrey, for his “Bottle-Filling Device.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to devices for filling bottles and similar receptacles with liquid, and has reference more particularly to that type of filling mechanism wherein a valve controlling the flow of liquid to the bottle is opened through the agency of an electromagnet when the empty bottle has been suitably positioned relatively to the filling device to receive the liquid, and is subsequently closed by the automatic de-energizing of the magnet to cut off the flow of liquid to the bottle when the latter has been filled to the proper or desired height.

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Patent No. 2685966A: Apparatus For Separating Picked Hops From Leaves And Stems

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Today in 1954, US Patent 2685966 A was issued, an invention of Florian F. Dauenhauer of Santa Rosa, California, for his “Apparatus for Separating Picked Hops From Leaves and Stems.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

An object of this invention, is, to provide. a conveyor, which is inclined laterally, or sidewise. The hops, leaves and stems to be separated are discharged upon the conveyor near the higher section thereof. The clean hops will roll to the lower section of the conveyor, while unclean hops, leaves and stems, will be moved along the higher section of the conveyor. The clean, hops are conveyed to a sacking device, While the unclean hops are moved from one conveyor to another until all of the leaves and other refuse are separated from the hops.

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Beer In Ads #1643: Give Yourself A Break

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Sunday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1956. When you’re sitting in the dark watching nature documentaries, feasting on the carcass of a chicken (or possibly turkey) with some cheese between two slices of bread, you’ll definitely want a cold beer. So “Give Yourself A Break” and have some “late in the evening.” I hope Bambi makes it out the forest.

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Session #102: A Beery Landscape

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For our 102nd Session, our host is Allen Huerta, who writes Active Brewer. For his topic, he’s asking us to look at the big picture, the entire landscape of beer; yesterday, today, and/or tomorrow, or as he more fully explains what he has in mind for the August Session in his announcement, “The Landscape of Beer:”

SURPRISE, SURPRISE! The Landscape of Beer in America is changing. It has even begun influencing beer in countries all around the world. Everyone has their opinion on Local vs Global, Craft vs Macro, and Love vs Business. Those who were at the Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference in Asheville this past weekend had a brief talk about how “Small and Independent Matters”. Something that quite a few people say matters to them, but where is the upper limit? Does a purchase of another brewery still allow a brewery to fall into the Small and Independent camp?

Our topic this month is, “The Landscape of Beer“. How do you see that landscape now? What about in 5, 10, or even 20 years? A current goal in the American Craft Beer Industry is 20% market share by the year 2020. How can we get there? Can we get there?

Whether your view is realistic or whimsical, what do you see in our future? Is it something you want or something that is happening? Let us know and maybe we can help paint the future together.

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Because the weekend’s all but over, I decided — as usual — not to follow instructions per se, and instead found four literal landscapes of beer’s constituent parts in my library of photographs.

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The River Trent, in Burton upon Trent, although the brewing water actually comes from an aquifer deep below the town (but the photo of the aquifer is pretty dull).

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Barley growing in the San Luis Valley of southwest Colorado.

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Hops in the Yakima Valley, Washington.

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Yeast bubbling at White Labs in San Diego.

Patent No. 2948617A: Processing Of Brewers’ Wort

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Today in 1960, US Patent 2948617 A was issued, an invention of Stanley William Thomas Paine, for his “Processing of Brewers’ Wort.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

The invention is more particularly concerned with the method which comprises passing the wort in continuous movement from a mash tun as sweet wort to a fermentation vessel as hopped wort, and in the course of that movement raising the temperature of the wort to a high value, holding the wort at the high temperature in a holding vessel, reducing the temperature of the wort and passing it to a hop extraction vessel and then passing the hopped wort to a sedimentation vessel where this is required and thence through a sludge separating device and a cooling device to the fermentation vessel.

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Patent No. 608744A: Process Of And Apparatus For Gasing Beer Or Similar Liquids

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Today in 1898, US Patent 608744 A was issued, an invention of John L. Alberger, for his “Process of And apparatus for Gasing Beer or Similar Liquids.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

The object of the present invention is to provide an improved process of and apparatus for gasing beer, the special object being to provide a process and apparatus which shall enable the operation to be performed more quickly than by the processes and apparatus previously in use for this purpose.

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Beer In Ads #1642: Cool It With The Friendmaker

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Saturday’s ad is for Reading Premium, from 1969. This is from my hometown brewery, which closed in 1976. But as regular readers will know, it was a “friendly” beer, having used the slogan “The Friendly Beer For Modern People” since the 1950s. It’s probably my favorite beer slogan of all-time. I guess by the late 1960s it was sounding old-fashioned, so they tried to make it sound a little more groovy by calling it the shorter “Friendmaker.” The ad is for a six-pack of pint bottles — “glass cans” — which is “a right beer, a day beer, a night beer … a drink it any time beer!”

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Patent No. 1000086A: Straining-Tank

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Today in 1911, US Patent 1000086 A was issued, an invention of Fred W Goetz and Claes Flodin, for their “Straining-Tank.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

Our invention relates, more particularly, to an improvement in tanks for straining hopped wort from the hops after the wort has been boiled with them for the requisite length of time in the brewing-kettles provided for the purpose.

In the process of brewing beer it is necessary, in order to prevent the beer from becoming bitter, to drain the wort from the hops as quickly as possible, after the boiling operation above referred to has been completed; and it is highly desirable that as much of the wort as is loosely held in the hops by absorption be drained 0H and recovered for further treatment.

One of our objects is to provide a construction of straining-tank which will enable the hopped wort to be quickly and effectively washed and drained from the hops and cause the latter to be freed, up to the maximum practical extent, of its wort-contents.

Another object is to provide a construction of straining-tank whereby the spent hops may be discharged therefrom in a simple and effective manner.

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