   thumb|traditional oak barrels made by chilean cooperage tonelerÃ­a nacional   a barrel, cask, or tun is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of wooden staves bound by wooden or metal hoops. traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. for example, in the uk a barrel of beer refers to a quantity of . wine was shipped in barrels of . a small barrel is called a keg. modern wooden barrels for wine-making are either made of french common oak (quercus robur) and white oak (quercus petraea) or from american white oak (quercus alba) and have typically these standard sizes: "bordeaux type" , "burgandy type" 228 l (60.2 us gal or 50.15 imp gal) and "cognac type" . modern barrels and casks can also be made of aluminum, stainless steel, and different types of plastic, such as hdpe. someone who makes barrels is called a "barrel maker" or cooper. barrels are only one type of cooperage. other types include, but are not limited to: buckets, tubs, butter churns, hogsheads, firkins, kegs, kilderkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, pins, and breakers. barrels have a variety of uses, including storage of liquids such as water and oil, fermenting wine, arrack and sake, and maturing beverages such as wine, cognac, armagnac, sherry, port, whiskey and beer. ==history==  though herodotus mentions palm-wood casks used in shipping armenian wine to babylon in mesopotamia, the barrel as we know it today was most likely developed by the celts. around 350 bc they were already using watertight, barrel-shaped wooden containers that were able to withstand stress and
Beer_vessels_and_serving Food_storage_containers Gardening_aids Shipping_containers Wine_packaging_and_storage