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.
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.
