Today in 1967, US Patent 3317025 A was issued, an invention of Ernst Schickle, assigned to Rheingold Breweries, for his “Automatic Keg Feeder.” There’s no Abstract, but in the description it states that the “invention relates generally to brewery operation and particularly to an improved apparatus for effecting transfer and controlled delivery of beer kegs or similar containers from a feeder location to an operating location.” A little later on, they add that the “invention may be briefly described as an improved beer keg transfer and delivery apparatus which includes, in its broad aspects, a keg receiving and neonmulating conveyor, a keg transfer unit, a delivery conveyor and associated means for effecting controlled keg delivery in spaced relation onto the delivery conveyor.”
