The last six months have been busy with weird beer brewing. I’m now six batches into brewing sours with no finished products yet!

Today I topped up and sampled a few of them.

I’ve been itching to start my own sour solera project ever since I started making sour beer. Barrels aren’t a requirement for a solera, lots of people make them in carboys or other vessels. But I have a romantic image of barrel aged beers and wanted to try the process for myself.

Prior to this project I’d never brewed with a barrel or even seriously considered getting one. I did a lot of background reading and I want to share what I learned getting ready for my project.

Choose a barrel size

Used barrels come in a wide variety of sizes. A standard American whiskey barrel is 53 gallons. Wine barrels are typically a little larger. 60 gallons is a common size.

Smaller barrels in the 5 to 30 gallon range are also available on the used market. Most come from small whiskey producers. I’m not aware of any sources for small wine barrels or if any wineries even use small barrels. It seems that if you want a small used barrel, you’re getting a whiskey barrel.