Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 20110017737A1: Plastic Beer Keg

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Today in 2011, US Patent 20110017737 A1 was issued, an invention of William P. Apps, for his “Plastic Beer Keg.” Here’s the Abstract:

A plastic beer keg includes an outer container and an inner liner. A removable lid is secured over an opening to the container to enclose the liner. The liner includes a neck portion and a body portion. A head contact member transfers axial forces imparted by handling equipment away from the neck portion.

From reading through the description, the idea of this invention is to replace the costlier metal kegs currently in use today. Only time will tell.

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Patent No. 3558326A: Process For Isomerizing And Purifying Hop Extracts

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Today in 1971, US Patent 3558326 A was issued, an invention of William J. Durant, William C. Herwig, and Donald H. Westermann, assigned to Miller Brewing, for their “Process for Isomerizing and Purifying Hop Extracts.” There’s no Abstract, but they describe it as a “hop extract substantially free from waxes, oils, and nonacidic hop components is prepared by treating a waterimmiscible solvent solution of hop extract with an aqueous alkaline solution to isomerize acid hop components in the aqueous phase. The waxes, oils, and nonacidic hop components enter the nonaqueous phase and are removed with the latter. The aqueous phase is acidied, more solvent is added, and the hop acids enter the solvent phase and are recovered therefrom. The extract is used in making beer of improved light stability.”

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Patent No. 3637117A: Keg Tapping Device

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Today in 1972, US Patent 3637117 A was issued, an invention of Mack S. Johnston, assigned to Republic Corp., for his “Keg Tapping Device.” Here’s the Abstract:

The device comprises a keg adapter mounted about a keg opening and a dispenser coupler releasably coupled to the keg adapter having gas inlet and beer dispensing outlet passages terminating in two side-by-side probes depending from the coupler. The liquid probe is movably mounted in the coupler and biased in one direction. An inverted J-shaped tube is carried by the coupler in communication with the liquid probe and displacement of the tube moves the liquid probe in the opposite direction to open the beer valve in the keg adapter. The gas passage is in communication with a hand operated portable plunger-type pump whereby gas is provided through the keg adapter into the keg.

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Patent No. 3636888A: Pallet

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Today in 1972, US Patent 172687 A was issued, an invention of John A. Angelbeck Jr., assigned to Pack Rite Packaging & Crating, for his “Pallet.” There’s no Abstract, but it’s described as a “pallet used for the storage and transporting of containers such as beer kegs and the like.” It’s essentially a plastic pallet, and while I’ve seen a few of them, I don’t think they’ve replaced the wooden pallet the way the inventor hoped.
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Patent No. 172687A: Improvement In Beer-Coolers

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Today in 1876, US Patent 172687 A was issued, an invention of Louis Baeppler, for his “Improvement in Beer-Coolers.” There’s no Abstract, but the description includes this:

My invention relates to an apparatus which maybe readily applied to a keg or barrel of any description, so as to cool the beer after it leaves the barrel.

The invention consists of an ice-chamber, provided with an opening at the bottom for the insertion of a cock to be attached to the lower end of the cooling-coil, and an opentopped slot at the top for the insertion and removal of the upper end of the coil, and a cover for closing said chamber, as hereinafter described and shown.

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Patent No. 3231384A: Continuous Boiling And Hopping Of Brewers’ Wort

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Today in 1966, US Patent 3231384 A was issued, an invention of William Ernest Parker and Francis Lloyd Rigby, assigned to Canadian Breweries Ltd., for their “Continuous Boiling and Hopping of Brewers’ Wort.” There’s no Abstract, but partway down in the description is this:

The method of the present invention generally comprises forming a continuously flowing stream of hot brewers wort, causing said stream to flow in a substantially horizontal path, continuously introducing a predetermined mass of hops to said stream, heating said flowing wort, venting said stream of undesirable volatiles above said path of flow and controlling the time flow ratio of said wort and hops as to hop said wort to desired degree, and finally continuously discharging spent and hopped wort from said stream. This may be carried out with the wort and hops flowing counter-current to one another, discharging spent hops at one end of the path and hopped wort at the other. Alternatively, it may be carried out in a co-current flow.

The method may be carried out in particularly simple apparatus which may take the form, for counter-current flow, of a substantially horizontally disposed tubular vessel with provision for introducing wort towards one end thereof and hops in the other end thereof and which includes a perforated auger moving the hops in countercurrent flow to the continuously flowing wort as to cause spent hops to discharge at one end of the apparatus and hopped wort at the other, and which is a preferred type of apparatus proposed although such counter-current flow might be achieved by apparatus of other design. For cocurrent flow, the wort is introduced at one end while the hops are introduced adjacent that end and/or selectively along the length of the vessel.

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Patent No. 1070116A1: Beer Flavor Concentrate

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Today in 2001, US Patent 1070116 A1 was issued, an invention of Matthew L. Tripp, assigned to the Green Bay Beer Company, for his “Beer Flavor Concentrate.” Here’s the short Abstract. “A beer flavor concentrate and a method for making and using the beer flavor concentrate to produce a final beer product through the addition of carbonated water and alcohol.”

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While I’m not sure if this was ever marketed as, or as part of, a product, more recently concentrated beer has become available on the market. For example, Pat’s Backcountry Beverages was made primarily for camping. Over the last couple of years, both Popular Science and Gizmodo have been taken a look at how it works and if the reconstituted beer is any good.

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Patent No. 2969161A: Bung For Beer Barrels

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Today in 1961, US Patent 2969161 A was issued, an invention of Robert Givens Mcculloch, for his “Bung for Beer Barrels and the Like.” There’s no Abstract, but the application describes it an “invention has been devised to provide a bung (generally called a shive) for beer barrels and like containers for liquids which will enable a tap fitting or pipe to be connected to the barrel without spilling the contents of the barrel during the connecting operation.”
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Patent No. 2452476A1: Mediating The Effects Of Alcohol Consumption By Orally Administering Active Dry Yeast

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Today in 2003, US Patent 3712820 A was issued, an invention of Joe Owades, for his “Mediating the Effects of Alcohol Consumption by Orally Administering Active Dry Yeast.” Here’s the short Abstract. “A process for lowering blood alcohol levels in humans after they imbibe alcoholic beverages by administering active dry yeast before or concomitantly with the imbibing of the beverages.”

This is most likely the origin of the hangover prevention that Jim Koch, from the Boston Beer Co., has popularized over the years, but especially after Esquire magazine ran an article about it last April, How to Drink All Night Without Getting Drunk.

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The story got picked up by NPR, Serious Eats and even Snopes took a look at it.

But I’d actually heard Jim tell the story a couple of times at various events, most recently at a beer dinner last year at the Jamaica Plain brewery in Boston celebrating the 30th anniversary of Samuel Adams.

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In telling the story, Jim did, of course, mention that the idea came from Joe Owades, who had worked as a consultant with the Boston Beer Co. since the very beginning, and off and on thereafter. But I don’t think I’d realized before now that Joe had actually patented the idea.

The claim in the patent application describes it in a nutshell. “A method of mediating the effect of alcohol consumption by a person which comprises orally administering active dry yeast containing alcohol dehydrogenase to said person prior to or simultaneously with consumption of an alcohol-containing beverage, whereby to oxidize a portion of the alcohol while still in the stomach of said person.” His own testing of the method, shown in the figures below, found that “blood alcohol level-min. was reduced by 38% by the yeast.”

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Patent No. 3712820A: Process For Making A Brewers’ Wort Beer

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Today in 1973, US Patent 3712820 A was issued, an invention of Martin F. Walmsley and John Valentine Cross, and assigned to John Labatt Ltd., for their “Process for Making a Brewers’ Wort Beer.” There’s no Abstract, but in the description they explain that the “invention provides a process for producing a brewers wort in which an aqueous slurry of a raw starch containing material, preferably a cereal grain such as barley, is heated to 40 55 C. at which temperature it is subjected to the action of a discrete proteolytic enzyme and, optionally, a discrete ot-amylase enzyme, then heated to 65-90 C. at which temperature it is subjected to the action of a discrete a-amylase enzyme to solubilise the starch, after which it is cooled to 40-65 C. at which temperature it is subjected to the action of a discrete amylase enzyme or source thereof to produce fermentable sugars.”
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