This week in 1882

After a hard day’s work building Britain’s mighty infrastructure, I’m sure Victorian engineers craved nothing more than a nice glass of cold beer. Indeed, The Engineer’s archives of 1882 reported on a ’beer engine’ that delivers the amber nectar to the taps of any bar more efficiently and at a lower temperature ’to preserve taste’.

It was the invention of one MPF Gougy of Paris ’by which the counter or bar pumps are made unnecessary’ through an ’arrangement of apparatus not known much in this country’.

The article described the equipment illustrated in the engraving above: ’The pressure in the accumulator [B] being sometimes five times more than necessary to make the beer flow from the cellar, provides a large reserve of air and thus allows the attendant to draw a large quantity of beer without being obliged to work the pump. In most cases air is pumped in the accumulator in quantities sufficient for a day.