What the firkin!
Jun0
That is a wee keg you have there!
Have you ever heard of the term “firkin?” Personally I had never heard of the term until this year’s Seattle Beer week. Granted I am fairly new to the beer geek world. So, I took it upon myself to do some research and post it here so maybe someone else won’t appear as ignorant. Sometimes you will see in pubs that serve craft beers that a beer is available only in a cask. Those pubs are saying two things:
1) It is a small amount of beer compared to a keg since cask beers almost always come in firkins.
2) That the beer was brewed cask-style (I will explain more about this in a later post).
A firkin actually indicates a size it usually means a fourth of a full keg, which means it is 9 gallons. There are other interesting terms that convey size as well they are:
- kilderkin (twice the size of a firkin)
- barrels (twice the size of a kilderkin, i.e. a keg)
- hogsheads (1.5 times larger than a keg)
- butts (three times the size of a hogshead)
- tuns (almost 8 kegs/barrels)
Well now you know different sizes that usually house liquid! You also know that when someone says there is a cask beer there isn’t that much there so you better get to the bar before it taps out 
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