The sisterhood of the travelling barrel

pH1, from the outside, looks completely unremarkable. It’s brown and wooden, a little bit battered, and much like any other barrel. Originally from a winery in France, pH1 was sold to New Belgium brewing who used it to age some of their La Folie sour ale, which went on to win a medal at the 2000 Great American Beer Festival. pH1 was then used again and again by New Belgium, producing delicious sour ale, until it went missing, only to resurface at Russian River in northern California some months later. After its sabbatical in Santa Rosa, the barrel made its way home to Fort Collins, Colorado. There it continued to be filled with beer, quietly carving out the signature American Sour Ale flavour that so many were desperate to replicate. 

Word of this magic barrel spread, and eventually inspired an entire brewery. The Rare Barrel, established in 2013 by college friends Jay Goodwin and Alex Wallash, was named after pH1. The Rare Barrel made only sour beers, and hosted tastings each year to try and find that year's best barrel. In 2015, as a surprise, New Belgium shipped pH1 to the brewery in California, for them to use in their own brewing. pH1 didn’t stay still for long, returning to Fort Collins for a stint at Purpose Brewing, before heading to Side Project in St. Louis, and it is currently housed at Off Color Brewing in Chicago. 

Off Color is a Chicago institution, and its small brewpub, The Mousetrap, contains a sour and mixed fermentation facility where pH1 is currently being put to work. 

The story of pH1 isn’t just about this single barrel, there’s also a human side to the story, from people who genuinely love this inanimate, and un-huggable, object. No-one loves it more, perhaps, than Peter Bouckaert, the former brewmaster of New Belgium who first filled pH1.

Peter has spread the influence of the barrel beyond its physical confines. Jugetes Perdidos, a brewery in Buenos Aires, is making complex and delicious beer using an old farmhouse foeder that previously contained Reisling wine. Again, the unique microbiome of the vessel is to thank, so Peter himself christened it the “pH1 of The South”. If you’re lucky, you can sometimes get your hands on beer aged in said foeder, but just in Argentina. 

For others, the continuity and connection that pH1 facilitates has become a symbol of eternal love and commitment. Kelly McKnight is the R&D brewer at the Fort Collins branch of New Belgium. When she married her wife they both had matching rings made up of fragments of materials that mattered to them. Kelly’s wife is an aerospace engineer, and her ring contains meteorite and space diamond. Kelly’s ring contains a fragment of pH1. She wanted to incorporate some brewing history, and wood from New Belgium, into her ring. Peter insisted she take a piece of pH1 and the resulting fragment is forever preserved on her ring finger. 

Everyone who is part of the pH1 story signs their name on the barrel, adding their line, and leaving space for the next person to shape the tale. No other barrel has ever brought so many people together. Barrels have finite lifespans, and one day pH1 will begin to leak, the microbiome will tip into the acetic, and it will have no brewing use any more. When that day comes the story won’t end, the people, beers, and legacy associated with pH1 will continue, and perhaps that’s the true magic of this barrel.