Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1894-06-20
WHERE TIE BEER KEGS GO.
One of the Important Items of Loss in the
 Brewery Business.

. One of the Important Items of Loss in ths
 Brewery Business.
 Quite a story can be told in connec tion with beer keg. Apparently it is only | very substantial and long-lived article. It takes a long while for one to wear out. It has tough constitu- tion, and is protected from internal de cay by a coat of very pure and hard pitch. The pitch used on the modern keg is much superior to that formerly used. It is clear, tasteless and tough. An empty beer keg will stand a great many knocks before the pitch scales off. GThe kegs wear out, when they do wear. externally. They are wet and dry alternately, and this promotes de- cay Then they get a great deal Z of unnecessary banging around between the time they leave the brewery and are brought back again. Everybody, from the driver and railroad and steam boat hands down to the barl5eeper, seems to think the kegs are inde- structible. A whole car load of ampty kegs is frequently thrown from the car down to the ground. A single empty leg is often thrown fifteen feet.
 Yet it is rare for a keg to become broken or lose hoop under such cir cumstanees. Of course, such rough usage tells in time. It really isn't nee far as the keeping of the beer is con scerned. They began by being made heavy in the old days. The brewers sthen deemed it absolutely requisite to make them that way in order to with stand the pressure of the beer The very fact that they were made heavy and clumsy subjected sthem to rough handling. Now they have to be made heavy, and extra ma sterial has to be put into the heads and Slaves, simply because of this handling sand not from any danger on account of the internal pressure of the beer.
 But the other features that make up "a romance of the beer-keg can best be told in the language of a brewer in a reeent interview. He said:
 ''It is not the breakage or decay of the kegs that bothers the brewers. It is the frequent and entirely unneees- sary loss of the kegs. You would be Surprised to hear the number of kegs and half-barrels big brewery will lose in a year. It runs into thousands at times. No ordinary precautions can check the loss. Charging for the kegs and giving a rebate for the return would accomplish something in that direction, but there is too much lively Competition in the business for any one to dare such an experiment. | don't think there are many brewers in this country who would stoop low enough to erase brands and use another brewers kegs. A quarter-barrel is worth about two dollars and fifty cents, and it doesn't look to me that it would pay man to Steal such petty thing as that What becomes of the beer kegs then? Just try and think and tell me if you have ever been at a boating or yachting re- sort in this country where you did not see one or two or perhaps a score of beer kegs bohbing on the waves as buoys to mark Il course, or as moorings for boats. That means thousands of beer kegs, only few of which have been bought from the brewers. They bob upon the waves for year or two and then become water-logged and sink, to be replaced by fresh kegs. If a man wants empty oil barrels for float or buoy he buys them for about one dollar apiece. Iii he wants beer keg or two he bor- rows them from friendly saloon keeper, who, perhaps, says: Look around the yard, and if you see any sthat suits you, why just take them. Don't let me see you do it.
 That there were other uses for beer kegs than holding lager l realized when 1 was up in New York state. They were tapping maple trees on a mountain near where l was stopping, and went out to see them do it.. The hotel-keeper was filling beer kegs with the sap and carting it down to his place, where it was being converted in- to maple syrup in a big, open farmers boiler. He had half a dozen beer halves and several quarters in use They came in pretty handy, he remarked. lie had been saving them since last summer for this purpose. They be- longed to two brewers in Paterson, one in New York and one in New ark. The New York kegs were taken into the woods by Sunday picnic crowd. and the hotel-keeper was asked to ship the empties home next day, He didn't do it, and it is not at all like ly that he will see those kegs again. I've got a suspicion that the Italians are to blame for the disappearance of many of our kegs. They have trick of making cheap strong beer at home, and believe they use beer kegs for the purpose. Then occasionally, in the summer, we sometimes hear of larger beer kegs being used for making home brews with root beer extracts. This is an illegitimate use of the kegs, and I'm puzzled to understand how any body that would make or drink root beer could ever get hold of beer keg, except by swiping it from a saloon al ley at night. "-St. Louis GlobeDemo- crat.
 Aa life UnfOIds