A Shot of Beer History #7 - How Old Are Beer Kegs?

We've all seen them, those rows and stacks of beer kegs that line the street outside our public houses - battered, bashed and tarnished. Most people don't give them much thought, apart from having to dance and dodge around these obstacles as they run errands or go about their daily business.

But have you ever wondered how old beer kegs are? Not barrels or casks, actual beer kegs, or at least something that sounds like them. Well it seems that something akin to a modern, metal beer keg has been around since at least 1840 if we go by this description in an engineering journal from that year ...

Ale and Porter Preserved. - In order to save ale and porter in good condition for a considerable length of time it is, for the most part, kept corked down in bottles; and though this method answers exceedingly well, yet it is subject to this inconvenience, that it causes, where a small quantity, as one draught, for instance, is only required, all the rest of the ale or porter in the bottle to go to waste, which must prove both expensive and inconvenient. It is pressure that is the main cause of keeping ale, &c., so well in bottles, and an apparatus is in use by which liquids may be constantly under pressure in casks as well as in corked bottles. The vessel is made in the form of a cask of strong tin, strongly braced by iron hoops, which stands on its end. At the upper end is a cock, soldered to a tube, which is immersed to within an inch of the bottom of the cask. At the same end is a condensing syringe, by means of which air can be forced into the cask; and whenever this is effected it is obvious that the liquor will have a tendency to escape through the tube and out at the cock with a force proportionate to the degree the air is compressed by the action of the syringe. If the cock be then turned the liquor will rush out with violence, foaming, at the same time a great quantity of froth, or what is usually termed a cauliflower head. Every time the ale is drawn from the cask, the air it contains is not exposed to the atmosphere, whilst the liquor is kept under pressure, and no vent peg is necessary. It is said all the advantages of bottling are obtained by the above process, without one half of the waste and inconvenience attending on the former system.

That certainly sounds like a prototype modern beer keg. A pressurised, metal beer container where the liquid is forced from a tap at its top, using apparatus that sounds somewhat familiar to any in the pub trade, albeit without the external tubing and using just manually applied pressurised air instead of forced pure carbon dioxide.

So it seems that those beer kegs we are familiar with are heading for being two centuries old?

Although anything resembling modern keg ale was still a quite a few years away!

Liam K

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. The above information was sourced via Google Books - Mechanics' Magazine and Journal of Engineering, Agricultural Machinery, Manufactures, and Shipbuilding, Volume 32 Knight and Lacey - 1840.. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!