Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 1863081A: Bottle Cap

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Today in 1932, US Patent 1863081 A was issued, an invention of Earl S. Bellows, assigned to the Huntington Rubber Mills, for his “Bottle Cap.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

My invention relates to closures for glass bottles designed to contain effervescent fluid .producing a pressure in the container; and it is also useful for inert fluids or for use 5 in bottling processes resultant in a partial vacuum in the top of the bottle after the contents have been placed therein.

The particular feature of my new bottle cap is its capability of being re-used many times and the provision made for removing it without the use of tools or implements which will tend to destroy it.

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Patent No. 3325032A: Bottle Cap

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Today in 1967, US Patent 3325032 A was issued, an invention of Louis A. Cormier, for his “Bottle Cap.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

It is common practice in the soft drink and beer industries to provide the bottle with a cap having a tab extending outwardly from the cap to permit its removal without the use of a bottle opener. Such a cap is shown in the patent of Cormier No. 3,200,982 which issued on Aug. 17, 196-5. Although the cap shown in that patent operates satisfactorily, some strength is required to remove the cap with one hand; this, on occasion, has made it difficult for women or children to open the caps. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art devices have been obviated in a novel manner by the present invention.

It is, therefore, an outstanding object of the invention to provide a bottle cap which may be removed easily without the use of the auxiliary tools.

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Patent No. 888995A: Bottle-Sealing Cap

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Today in 1907, US Patent 888995 A was issued, an invention of Emory J. Godman, assigned to the Sterling Seal Company, for his “Bottle-Sealing Cap.” There’s no Abstract, though it’s described this way in the application:

My invention as hereinafter more particularly described, consists in providing the edge of the skirt of the sealing cap with a flat horizontally-extending corrugated flange, and in the sealing operation, indenting the skirt at a point above and independently of the flange so as to bring the inner surface of the skirt at that point slightly under and in contact with the shoulder of the bottle head.

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Patent No. 625055A: Closure For Sealing Bottles

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Today in 1899, US Patent 625055 A was issued, an invention of William Painter, for his “Closure for Sealing Bottles.” There’s no Abstract, but in the description they describe an “invention [that] relates to closures for sealing bottles; and it is designed to provide for the ready and easy discharge of the contents of the bottle without the removal of the entire closure.” Basically, it’s an improvement to the crown, or bottle cap, that Painter first invented and patented in 1892.

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Patent No. 1907994A: Cap

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Today in 1933, US Patent 1907994 A was issued, an invention of Edward McManus Charles, assigned to Crown Cork & Seal Co., for his “Cap.” There’s no Abstract, but in the description they talk about an “invention relat[ing] to caps for containers and particularly contemplates a cap wherein a sealing ring or cushion is usually employed.” If you keep reading, it’s explained that this crown works better than previous ones for a variety of reasons, even though it looks pretty much the same as other crowns.
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Patent No. 1956218A: Capping Head

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Today in 1934, US Patent 1956218 A was issued, an invention of George J Huntley and Harry A Rau, assigned to the Crown Cork & Seal Co., for their “Capping Head.” There’s no Abstract, but the description summarizes it. “The present invention relates to an improvement in capping heads and, more particularly, comprises a means for feeding closure or cap blanks to the capping mechanism of the capping head.”
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Beer Crown Display Maps

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This is a fun idea. If you’re like me, you open a lot of beer bottles. Maybe you immediately throw away the crowns, or maybe some of them are too cool to just toss out, and you throw them into a jar, or a bucket or something. That’s why I do, so I ended up having a fair number of crowns just lying around gathering dust. I kept thinking that I’d eventually think of some good use to put them to, but now it looks like someone has come up with the perfect way to display beer crowns.

A small company out of Wisconsin, Beer Cap Maps, is making plywood maps of the United States along with several state maps with holes cut in them, which can be filled with your beer crowns.

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They apparently fit most, if not all, crowns, and you can place your crowns geographically until you fill out the country with beer you’ve tried. In addition to the U.S., they also have maps of the British Isles, Germany and New Zealand.

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Or if you want to collect beers from a particular state, they have maps for 35 states so far, with plans to have all 50 made available by May 1.

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If you have a lot from your home state, it would be fun to put them roughly where the brewery is located. For bars or serious collectors, it would be cool to have multiple states.

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Patent No. 1899784A: Bottle Cap

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Today in 1933, US Patent 1899784 A was issued, an invention of Albin H. Warth, assigned to the Crown Cork & Seal Co., for his “Bottle Cap.” This crown was patented shortly before the repeal of Prohibition, which took place several months later, in December, although by April some lower-strength beer became available. There’s no Abstract, but the description provides some insight in the why it was a more modern crown.

This invention relates to bottle caps and more particularly to a cap consisting of ametallic’shell containing a cushion disc having what is known as a protecting facing. In its preferred form, the invention relates to that type of cap having a protecting facing in the form of a center-disc or center-spot which is of smaller diameter than the cushion disc.

In closures of this character, the cushion or compressible disc is ordinarily formed of sheet cork or of a composition of granular cork, the particles of which are united by a binder which is resistant to gas and acids.

It is desirable to protect the cushion disc from the contents of the bottle, since the cork or other material of the disc becomes discolored and imparts an undesirable flavor or taint to the contents.

The facing discs have ordinarily been fornied either of metal foil, such as aluminum or tin, or of fibrous material, such as paper.

The present invention relates to the latter type in which the facing is of paper.

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Patent No. 468258A: Bottle-Sealing Device

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Today in 1892, US Patent 468258 A was issued, an invention of William Painter, for his “Bottle-Sealing Device.” There’s no Abstract, and it’s funny to see it called a “bottle-sealing device,” when essentially it’s simply a crown or bottle cap. Is it possible that the term had not yet been coined at this point? Painter in his application described his device:

For use with any suitable sealing medium, whether in the form vof a plug or a disk, or a combined disk and plug, applied at or in the mouth of a bottle, I have devised metallic sealing-caps embodying certain novel characteristics which render them highly effective and so inexpensive as to warrant throwing them away after a single use thereof, even when forcible displacement, as in opening bottles, has resulted in no material injury to the caps.

I have seen his name linked to the invention of crowns, so these may be the very first ones.
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Rusty Crowns As Art

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I meant to write about these before, but they got away from me. British photographer — and current Bay Area resident — Charly Franklin is making some amazing art … with rusty beer caps. And not just rusty, but “rusted, bent, discolored and generally distressed.” He’s taking very detailed photos of these crowns and blowing them up large, over three feet in some cases, which gives them almost an otherworldly appearance. Or in Charly’s own words, an “extraordinary quality and graphic dynamic that looks amazing.” And I have to agree. The patina of the rust, along with the colors and texture of the bottle caps looks really cool. Check out some samples.

Here’s a black crown from Lagunitas:
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And one from Anchor:
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Check out the catalog of over 200 different available crowns from breweries around the world, but with quite a few from California and many craft breweries.

Here’s one from Trumer:
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And other of Sierra Nevada’s Hoptimum:
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Prints are available on framed canvases, in five sizes, including 18×18, 24×24, 30×30, 36×36 and 40×40 inches. Shipping is free within the U.S.

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Finally, here’s two more, starting with Bear Republic:
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And here’s Drake’s:
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