When a brewery is referred to as a 2.5 barrel plant, what does that
mean? The smallest one I've heard of is half a barrel.



Dave

"David"  wrote in message
news:42ebcd45.2556421@news.btopenworld.com

> When a brewery is referred to as a 2.5 barrel plant, what does that
> mean? The smallest one I've heard of is half a barrel.


It means they can brew 2.5 barrels (i.e. 720 pints) in one batch.

-- 
http://www.stockportpubs.org.uk
"If a river bridge were not guarded by a parapet, the slackness of the
defaulting authority deserves the blame, not the people who fall in" -
Lieut. Col. Mervyn O'Gorman.

David wrote:


> When a brewery is referred to as a 2.5 barrel plant, what does that
> mean? The smallest one I've heard of is half a barrel.


Then you've not heard of Dogfish Head in Lewes, Delaware, Uncle Sugar? 
When they started out, they brewed 12 US gallons at a time. That's about 
10.3 real gallons, or just over a quarter of a barrel (or, 
alternatively, about a firkin and spillage).

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 15:36:06 -0400, Jamie McDonell wrote:


>> When a brewery is referred to as a 2.5 barrel plant, what does that
>> mean? The smallest one I've heard of is half a barrel.
> 
> Then you've not heard of Dogfish Head in Lewes, Delaware, Uncle Sugar?
> When they started out, they brewed 12 US gallons at a time. That's about
> 10.3 real gallons, or just over a quarter of a barrel (or, alternatively,
> about a firkin and spillage).


A very nice micro here started out with a 30 litre setup made
with converted Budweiser kegs. His beer was obviously good
enough for him to afford to import a more professional setup.

:-)

http://www.bairdbeer.com/home.html

Pictures of now and then here:

http://www.bairdbeer.com/html/brewery-photos.html

Wayne
-- 
Registered Linux user #375994
You can try sending mail to the address in the headers but it
might not get read for a while, if at all.

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 20:01:41 +0100, "PeterE"
 wrote:


>"David"  wrote in message
>news:42ebcd45.2556421@news.btopenworld.com
>> When a brewery is referred to as a 2.5 barrel plant, what does that
>> mean? The smallest one I've heard of is half a barrel.
>
>It means they can brew 2.5 barrels (i.e. 720 pints) in one batch.



Thanks for that.

No another question. When a tap is inserted into a cask, it pushes
what looks like a wooden bung into the cask.
How are these retrieved back at the brewery?


Dave

In article ,
David  wrote:

>No another question. When a tap is inserted into a cask, it pushes
>what looks like a wooden bung into the cask.
>How are these retrieved back at the brewery?


The keystone, which is the plastic or wooden bung that seals the hole
in the end of the cask, has a weak central section and a stronger
ring.  With plastic keystones, bashing the tap through typically tears
the central section on one side, pushing it out of the way.  With
wooden keystones, the central section floats to the top of the beer
inside the cask.

When the cask is returned to the brewery the shive (big bung on the
side of the cask) and the remains of the keystone are removed, the
ullage is drained out (along with broken bits of keystone, etc.), and
the cask is cleaned.

A fresh keystone and shive are used each time the cask is re-used.  It
is also sometimes necessary to replace the keystone or shive when the
cask is full: for example, if a cask has to be re-fined, a fresh shive
will be fitted once the finings have been added.

Steve Early