Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 4071160A: Insulated Beer Keg Container

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Today in 1978, US Patent 4071160 A was issued, an invention of Carl J. Vick, assigned to Keg-Tainer, Inc., for his “Insulated Beer Keg Container.” Here’s the Abstract:

A container adapted to receive a beer keg includes a cup-like top section fitting telescopically into the upper portion of a cup-like bottom section having a ring-like rim rolled at opposite points to provide handles. The rim has pairs of slots therethrough for binding straps and also has holes for binding ropes. Each section has an outer skin of a tough plastic with inner and outer walls with the spaces between the walls filled with a plastic foam. The sections are adapted to nest in each other for shipping and handling, and the bottom section has lugs designed to engage the rim of the top section. The top section has an elliptical bung hole to provide access to bungs of different makes of kegs, and a tubular stack may be fitted therein to retain ice for cooling and sealing. The bottom section has a bung access hole in its side which can be sealed by a truncated hollow ball having an opening to receive a tap connected to a lower bung of a keg.

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Patent No. 4801462A: Copper Heat Exchange Tubes

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Today in 1989, US Patent 4801462 A was issued, an invention of Arthur Tonna, assigned to The Stroh Brewery Company, for his “Copper Heat Exchange Tubes.” Here’s the Abstract:

Wort, heated to boiling in a brew kettle, is continuously withdrawn from the brew kettle and passed through a copper heat exchange coil in an external heat exchanger. Hot combustion gases are discharged at high velocity into direct contact with the heat exchange coil to thereby heat the wort flowing through the coil to a temperature in the range of 220° to 240° F. The heated wort is then returned to the brew kettle and discharged at a location beneath the level of the wort in the kettle. The direct firing of the wort in the copper heat exchange coil provides improved flavor characteristics for the beer.

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Patent No. 3713839A: Fermentation Process

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Today in 1973, US Patent 3713839 A was issued, an invention of Cavit Akin, Jacques J. Delente, Erik Krabbe, and Elmer Lueckerath, for their “Fermentation Process.” Here’s the Abstract:

The process of handling fermenting medium such that the carbon dioxide released during fermentation is applied to the problem of creating an agitation regime for desirable product quality and heat dissipation, and apparatus having depth and bottom shapes that determine the agitation pattern and assist in heat dissipation.

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Patent No. 3366033A: Brewing Of Beer

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Today in 1968, US Patent 3366033 A was issued, an invention of Laurence Robert Bishop, assigned to Watney Combe Reid & Co Ltd, for his “Brewing of Beer.” There’s no Abstract, but the description states that the invention is not so much a new method for the brewing of beer — as the title suggests — but instead is “an apparatus for segregating lupulin from dried hops including a pin mill into which the dried hops are introduced and subjected to disintegration and means for conveying the disintegrated material from the pin mill to a sifting means in which the lupulin is sifted from the discarded plant tissue.”
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Patent No. 3366270A: Pull Tab For Easy Opening Can End

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Today in 1968, US Patent 3366270 A was issued, an invention of Nick S. Khoury, assigned to Continental Can Co., for his “Pull Tab for Easy Opening Can End.” There’s no Abstract, but the description states that the “invention relates to a pull tab wherein in the initial rupture of the container panel, an inward pressure is exerted utilizing the pull tab with the pull tab functioning as a simple first-class lever.”
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Patent No. 642460A: Apparatus For Producing Wort, Hop-Beer, Washing Filter-Pulp, &c.

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Today in 1900, US Patent 642460 A was issued, an invention of Emil Kersten, for his “Apparatus for Producing Wort, Hop-Beer, Washing Filter-Pulp, &c.” There’s no Abstract, but the description states the “object of the invention is to provide a new and improved apparatus for use in breweries for washing and sterilizing the pulp used in filtering or for mashing and hopping purposes, to agitate and leach the pulverized or ground malt with water for producing wort, and to treat the wort with the hops in such a manner as to produce an unfermented liquor of a high quality and in such a state as to facilitate the fermenting process.”

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Patent No. 3788538A: Beer Carton

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Today in 1974, US Patent 3788538 A was issued, an invention of William A. Kuenzi, assigned to Miller Brewing, for his “Beer Carton.” Here’s the Abstract:

The entry of light into the interior of a beer carton through the handholes thereof is prevented by flaps, one of which is hingedly attached to the inner surface of each end panel above the upper margin of the handhole. The flaps are preferably wider than the handholes, extend downwardly below the lower margin of the handholes, and have a free lower edge. The flaps are preferably deflectable inwardly along a fold line opposite the upper margin of the handholes to permit entry of fingers around the upper margin of the handhole and between the inner surface of the end panel and the adjacent surface of the flap. Each end wall panel is preferably made of triple-folded material with the flap being cut out of the inside face of the material and the handhole being cut through the other two thicknesses.

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Patent No. 692170A: Apparatus For Aerating Wort And Improving The Quality Of Yeast

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Today in 1902, US Patent 692170 A was issued, an invention of Max Wallerstein and Hans H. Freund, for their “Apparatus for Aerating Wort and Improving the Quality of Yeast.” There’s no Abstract, but this is from the description.

Our invention relates to apparatus for aerating Wort during fermentation and improving the quality of yeast, and has for its object to provide an apparatus of this class by the use of which wort is aerated with filtered air in any desired quantity during fermentation and yeast of healthy growth and great purity is obtained.

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Patent No. 2229875A: The Art Of Wort Cooling

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Today in 1941, US Patent 2229875 A was issued, an invention of Robert Schwarz and Fred L.A. Schmidt, for their “Art of Wort Cooling.” There’s no Abstract, but here’s the general idea.

Generally speaking, the invention involves cooling the wort by evaporation in a cycle which includes the passage of clean, filtered air or air 2o rendered germ-free by other methods, along or across the path of a flat expanded stream in which the wort is introduced into a closed chamber. Where the cooling after such operation is inadequate, the wort or some of it is pumped in go one or more repetitions of said cycle until the desired cooling has been effected.

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Patent No. 135245A: Improvement In Brewing Beer And Ale

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Today in 1873, US Patent 135245 A was issued, an invention of Louis Pasteur, for his “Improvement in Brewing Beer and Ale.” There’s no Abstract, but Pasteur explains in the description that this is a “process of brewing without the presence in the wort of atmosphericair, my invention has for its object to produce a better quality and greater quantity of beer from the same quantity and quality of wort, and to afford a beer which shall also embody the quality of greater degree of unalterableness during time and changes of climate, &c., in transportation and use; and to these ends my invention consists in expelling the air from the boiled wort while confined in a closed vessel or closed vessels, and then cooling it by the application of sprays of water to the exterior of such vessel or vessels, as will be hereinafter more fully explained.”

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