Size of a standard pub beer-barrel

Hello,

I'd like to know the gallon capacity of a standard beer barrel that pubs get in the UK. If anyone could help, it would be appreciated!

Chris

Reply to
Chris Clancey
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Cask beer is supplied in firkins, or '9s', and kilderkins, or '18s', holding 9 or 18 imperial gallons respectively. There are some larger sizes but these are rarely used today. Remember that these are larger than US gallons.

A few breweries supply in 'metric firkins' of 11 gallons - about 50 litres.

HTH, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting

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Reply to
Paul Sherwin

Depends if you are talking Real Ale or not.

RA typically comes in either 9 or 18 gallons. Lagers, Guinness, etc come in a multitude of different sizes, which are either 30, 40 or 50 or 100 Litre.

Regards, Dave.

Reply to
Dave Bourke

if you mean old-fashioned cask beer, then it's prob most often either a firkin - 9UK-gallon (72pint/c.41-litres) or a kilderkin - 18-gallon (144pints/c82litres).

But the term 'barrel' to UK brewers & publicans refers specifically to a quantity of 36-gallons.

For kegs I think the most common size is 50litres (tho older 11-gals are still about IIRC) cheers MikeMcG

Reply to
MikeMcG

True, but the British general public uses the term 'barrel' to describe any draught beer container, cask or keg, any size - much as in the US I suspect.

It must have been great fun working as a drayman when barrels and hogsheads were in common use. Imagine manhandling a full barrel from a horse drawn dray! No wonder they were completely drunk most of the time.

Best regards, Paul

-- Paul Sherwin Consulting

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Reply to
Paul Sherwin

anything over 30 litres is becoming rarer these days, because of safety regulations...

20 litres are quite common.
Reply to
The Submarine Captain

A "proper" standard UK barrel holds 36 gallons. The next size up, a Hogshead, holds 56 gallons! The largest is a Butt - 100 gallons! HTH Paul

Reply to
Paul King

MikeMcG wrote:

Paul Sherwin wrote

erm, yes, that's why I wrote "'barrel' to brewers & publicans refers to ... 36 gallons" i.e. I was trying to imply that for beer 'barrel' has both a common usage (any sized draught beer container) and a technical one (a quantity of beer)

I thought for beer these were all multiples of 9gal?(*) i.e. (the ones alredy mentioned) plus HogsheadTgal, Puncheonrgal, Butt8gal, Tun!6gal?

(*)apart from the 4.5gal 'pin')

cheers MikeMcG

BTW apologies for repeating what everyone else said - one of the vagaries of readng & posting via google's slow usenet service.

Reply to
MikeMcG

Well, I found this -

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Look under "cask".

Kinda knocks all the arguments together :)

-- snipped-for-privacy@nospammarconi.com Replace the dots and remove nospam for valid email address

Reply to
Paul King

Reply to
Mike

Mike ( snipped-for-privacy@SPAMpalczewski.net) wrote: : 1 hogshead ;)

That's just great -- now perhaps you can explain a phrase that has mystified me since 1967:

....dancing through a hogshead of real fire...

Reply to
Bill Benzel

And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz!

Reply to
Oh, Guess

Perhaps it is like jumping thru a "ring of fire," where the ring is a barrel!? Found this:

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Reply to
Derric

ah . . . a belated virtual one minutes silence for the man in black's passing?

then altogether - "Love Is A Burning Thing And It Makes A Fiery Ring Bound By Wild Desire I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire

I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire I Went Down, Down, Down And The Flames Went Higher

And It Burns, Burns, Burns The Ring Of Fire"

Reply to
MikeMcG

A Barrel is a specific size , cask or keg is the generic for a container of cask beer, it depends where you are drinking but Holts pubs in Manchester are known to do 36 Gallon casks( I think this a barrel) , some pubs with great ranges of beers stock 9 gallons casks, This is in the UK. AFAIK

In message , MikeMcG writes

Reply to
martyn dawe

36 Imperial Gallons is an Imperial barrel. Full, it holds 360 pounds of water. A measurement of gravity was the "Brewer's Pound." It was the number of pounds beyond 360 that a barrel of wort weighed. IIRC it equals 2.777 specific gravity points.
Reply to
Dan Listermann

a Hogshead is a large UK cask holding 63 gals of Ale. Could this statement be interpreted as a ""session on high alcohol"

Terry B (UK)

Reply to
belto

I was messing around with a conversion website to help me with some numbers when I remembered this strand. I guess there is a difference between US measurements of volume and the British measurements. According to the calculator the British Gallon is approximately 1.2 US Gallons. So is there a possibility that this translates over to some of the stuff you guys are doing?

You guys probably already know this but I thought I'd put in my "look what I learned" 2 cents.

Here's the site I used:

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Salud!

-Dono

Reply to
Dono

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