Butt (unit)

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

The butt (from the medieval French and Italian botte) or pipe is an old English unit of wine casks, holding about 477 litres or rather two hogsheads. A hogshead varied in size but today is most commonly 63 US gallons (ca. 238.5 litres), so a butt is now usually 126 US gallons or 105 imperial gallons.

How big a butt or pipe of wine is can also depend on what kind of wine it is:

Madeira or Cape Wine 

92 gallons or 348 litres,

Sherry 

108 gallons or 409 litres,

Brandy 

114 gallons or 431.5 litres,

Port Wine 

115 gallons or 435 litres.

Traditionally, a butt of beer is 162 gallons or 613 litres. That is three, not two, hogsheads of beer!

George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV of England was drowned in a butt of malmsey, February 18, 1478.

English casks of wine [1] (http://www.sizes.com/units/wine_barrel.htm)

gallon	rundlet	barrel	tierce	hogshead	firkin, puncheon, tertian	pipe, butt	tun
							2	pipes, butts
						1½	3	firkins, puncheons, tertians
					1 1⁄3	2	4	hogsheads
				1½	2	3	6	tierces
			1 1⁄3	2	2 1⁄3	4	8	barrels
		1¾	2 1⁄3	3½	4 2⁄3	7	14	rundlets
	18	31½	42	63	84	126	252	wine gallons
0.83	14.99	26.23	34.97	52.46	69.94	104.92	209.83	imperial gallons	US + pre-1824
3.79	68.14	119.24	158.99	238.48	317.97	476.96	953.92	litres
-	15	26¼	35	52.5	70	105	210	imperial gallons	post-1824
-	68.19	119.3	159.1	238.7	318.2	477.3	954.7	litres

English casks of ale and beer [2] (http://www.sizes.com/units/barrel_alebeer.htm)

gallon	firkin	kilderkin	barrel	hogshead
				1½	barrels
			2	3	kilderkins
		2	4	6	firkins
	8	16	32	48	ale gallons	(1454)-1688
	9	18	36	54	beer gallons
	8½	17	34	51	beer & ale gallons	1688-1803
	9	18	36	54		1803-1824
	9	18	36	54	imperial gallons	1824-2000
4.55	40.91	81.83	163.66	245.49	litres

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) Butt_(unit) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_(unit)) version history (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Butt_(unit)&action=history) GNU Free Documentation Lizenz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License) CC-by-sa (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)

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