Hutter started out his career as a beer bottler and ended up in the bottler supply business. Before he became a supplier of bottlers' goods, Hutter was a bottler himself and his bottles are some of the earliest lager beer bottles known.
In 1875, Charles De Quillfeldt patented Lighting Stopper. Lightning Stopper quickly became the standard for the beer bottling industry. He survived several patent infringement lawsuits during the early 1880s when his office was at 185 Bowery Street in New York and a manufactory in Bennington, Vermont.
Karl Hutter applied for a patent for a “Bottle-Stopper” on April 6, 1892. His stopper, consisted of a ceramic plug with a rubber washer to replace the metallic head of the Lightning. He no longer used cork, but a cap made of porcelain. The Hutter Closure was born, and he was granted his first patent for this innovation Patent No.491,113 on February 7, 1893.
This stopper was an improvement to the Lightning stopper and was extremely popular and eventually replaced the Lightning as the preferred beer bottle stopper. This stopper was held in place with the same type of wire bail that was used on the lightning stopper. Both of these stoppers were utilized extensively on beer bottles until around 1915 and are still popular closures in foreign countries today.
Hutter committed suicide after a long illness at his apartment overlooking Central Park on June 15, 1913. He was 62.
Karl Hutter – Inventor and businessman
