RICK HARRISON: Hey, what have we got here?
A beer barrel and an alcohol meter.
So this is, like, the original breathalyzer?
[laughs]
[pouring]
[music playing]
GEORGE: I got the beer barrel and the alcohol meter from
my grandfather after he passed.
I know it was old and worth something,
so I just held on to it for a while.
I'm looking to get about $2,000.
The lowest I'll take, close to about $1,400.
RICK HARRISON: "Harvard Brewing Company"?
This is pretty neat.
This is an early-- because this is probably around 1900,
I guess.
Harvard Brewing Company was right outside of Boston,
I think it was.
"Lowell, Mass," right here.
GEORGE: Right.
And the most hideous thing our government ever
did was Prohibition, OK, when they tried
to take all the fun out of--
Out of life.
--out of life in general, yes.
And they banned alcohol in the United States.
So Harvard Brewing Company said they're
going to make near beer.
But no one wanted near beer.
And they ran into some serious economic times,
so they came up with this brilliant idea.
Let's make beer and just call it near beer.
[laughter]
If you can get away with it, it would--
it would work out very well.
And they got away with it for a while,
and then-- until the feds showed up at their brewery.
Government took the brewery.
But this is the crazy thing-- the government
continued to make beer.
And it eventually went broke.
And before everything went to hell,
this is how they transported beer.
So this is some weird apparatus to measure
alcohol in beer, wine, whiskey, or something like that.
If you know how to use it, I'm sure it still probably works.
But I have no idea how to use it.
I don't know as much about these items as I should.
But being a really big fan of beer and history,
I should learn a little bit more about 'em.
This is some neat stuff.
So how much you want for it?
I was looking to get about $2,000 for it.
[music playing]
I have no idea what a Harvard Beer Company barrel is worth,
but it's got a great story with it.
I'll give you a grand.
Can you do a little bit better than that?
I'll give you $1,200, maybe.
This thing right here is cool, but it takes up a lot of space.
I mean, what will you take?
Would you do 14?
[sighs] You know what? $1,400, I think I could make money.
All right, that'll work. Thanks.
I'll meet you right up there. We'll do some paperwork.
All right.
I'm really excited about this beer
barrel and this alcohol tester.
I absolutely love the history of beer.
And I have a friend down in San Diego who is a brewmaster,
so he's going to know what these things are worth.
And maybe I can sell 'em to him and make
a little money, because we know I love doing that.
[laughs]
PETER ZIEN: Hey, Rick. RICK HARRISON: Hey, man.
Good to see you again.
You, too.
So I got two really cool items.
I have this 1800s scientific instrument
for measuring alcohol.
And I have no idea how it works, or really even what it's worth.
Wow.
Well, let me take a look here.
All right, so we got a heating element here.
Yeah, here's the alcohol burner.
And this goes-- that, that's as far as I got.
OK.
And I believe this is going to fit in here.
Right, so what we have here, it's an ebulliometer.
It's based on the boiling temperature
of different liquids.
So we know ethyl alcohol boils at about 174.
And we know water boils at 212.
So they scaled that out.
And the more alcohol, the lower the boil temperature.
OK.
I would love to fire it up.
I'm just concerned about the mercury in this.
OK.
But there's nerds out there that love this kind of stuff.
I'm one of them.
The field alcohol meter isn't something you see every day.
From what I can tell it's never been used.
It looks in pristine condition.
And I imagine that it would dictate
the dollar amount at the higher end of the spectrum.
See, he's young. And--
Yeah, right.
[laughs] The Harvard Brewing Company--
I mean, it's the thickest barrel I've ever seen.
You know, back in the old days,
these things found their way onto ships.
They were-- being on railroads, so they were hardy.
They would reuse these over and over again as well.
That's what the bunghole's about.
You could fill and refill, clean these.
You got your keystone here.
You put the tap right on there.
This would obviously be on its side.
And you'd dispense beer right out of here.
Now, if they did get in trouble in Prohibition--
and a lot of these were destroyed.
So that would help the value with this.
So what are these things worth?
PETER ZIEN: Well, your vintage field meter here,
I've seen ones that are in beat-up condition that
are $600, $700.
This is pristine.
I'm not sure it was ever even used.
It's a nice piece of equipment.
The barrel, it comes down to pre-Prohibition
or post-Prohibition.
Based on the shape, the thickness
of the wood, the way the rings are,
I'm betting it's pre-Prohibition.
So I'm going to say together here, about $2,000.
So what did you pay?
Paid $1,400.
- Eh. - You know what?
And they're going to look great in my bar.
PETER ZIEN: They are cool.
Now, what's interesting is barrel aging strong beer
in bourbon barrels, rye barrels, tequila barrels
became fashionable.
And I can show you how we use those today
back in the brewery.
OK, this I got to see.
So how many barrels do you got right now?
We're pushing about 800 of these barrels.
It's beer that's finished and ready for market.
But we take a portion of each batch.
And we can park them in here up to a year.
And they're going to be everything
the original beer is.
But now, you're adding layers of complexity like vanilla, oak,
some bourbon notes.
RICK HARRISON: OK, cool.
I love beer, but-- [laughs]
You and me both.
No, it's also got a great history.
It's what people sustained on.
Yeah.
Because if you were in London back in, say, the 1600s,
you would be insane to drink the water there.
But beer was fine. - Mm-hmm.
And it goes even deeper.
We stopped being nomadic for the grain,
for beer-making, bread-making.
Why did Mayflower pull over on Plymouth Rock?
They ran out of beer.
So I would have paid a lot more attention in school
if I'd known that beer touches lots of different elements
of civilization. - OK.
So I've got a great idea.
I don't know if you're up for this, but how would
you like to brew a batch of beer?
Oh, I'd love to.
I think I can make that happen.
Would it be Rick's Wicked Ale?
You call it what you want.
Let me go talk to my brewers.
RICK HARRISON: OK.
Most people don't realize what beer has done for society.
Beer was so important, the pharaohs in Egypt
demanded beer in tax.
The Romans had beer.
All through the Middle Ages, they had beer.
As a matter of fact, we had a Revolutionary War
because guys sat around in taverns
and came up with the entire plan.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.