Pardon my polypin

I am not ashamed to say it – I kissed my own polypin.


A polypin is a small barrel. With a capacity of four and a half gallons, historically it was the smallest that beer came in. The next size up was a firkin, which held nine gallons, and then a kilderkin, which held 18. At the far opposite end of the beer barrel spectrum was the tun, which was good for 216 gallons.


One thing I knew when I decided to make beer from scratch was that I wanted to make it in in a barrel. It just seemed like the mos...