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[Maric]

Is there a way to mark a barrel for drinks only?
In my previous fortress I always ran into the problem of needing more barrels for drinks and after awhile it was my downfall. Started playing again and would like to nip this problem in the bud before I get big again.

Anyone know if its possible?

[kefkakrazy]

I think you can reserve barrels and bins using the Stockpiles menu. When you designate that a certain number of barrels be reserved, dwarves will use them for storing things only as long as that number of barrels remain ready for jobs like brewing.

[Maric]

Is that the only way  ?

[Exponent]

You can't mark individual barrels for drinks only.  The reserve ability in the stock(p)iles screen works reasonably well, though.  As an alternative, you can disable or limit the number of barrels usable by each individual food stockpile through the (q) menu, so that only drink-specific food stockpiles are allowed to use as many barrels as they want.

[Llamiel]

Is that the only way  ?

It's the best way, and perfectly adequate for brewing. If you wanted to get even more efficient you could designate a barrels-only stockpile next to your brewers and assign it to take from your furniture stockpile, which would also give you an easy way gauge how many spare barrels you have on hand a plan accordingly. 

[BigFatDwarf]

a) Make a food stockpile and reserve barrels then.

b) Go to the [q]Building Options and disallow all food, so only booze can be put in.

c) Now you got a Booze stockpile with barrel reserves.

Easy 3 steps to remember. There is another way though, called Booze Cooking. Just have all the booze  you'll ever need, and just cook it when need arises.

[Maric]

Thanks everyone for replies  .

[CarsonCity314]

So, I found I could free up barrels by going to the stocks screen, selecting all single-unit (or double unit) stacks of food and drink, and dumping them.  This has saved several of my tree-less fortresses from the exploding barrel cycle.

[Smew]

Uhm, the option for barrel reserving option doesn't require a new food stockpile, you just raise the amount of reserved barrels.

[Martin]

I almost never run into barrel problems since I instituted a few rules:

1) Only grow plants that can also be milled/processed. If you run out of barrels, mill your plants as they take less space in bags then in barrels.
2) Never put prepared meals in stockpiles with other foods, and forbid barrels from those stockpiles. Prepared meals will last forever outside of barrels so long as they are in a food stockpile and underground. Invariably what you get with barrels in your prepared meal stockpiles is one meal stack inside of a barrel - it takes up no less space and just wastes a barrel.
3) Never put tallow in barrels. Most large animals create enough fat/tallow to consume an entire barrel - just leave it in its own stockpile with max barrels to 0.

That leaves meat/fish to eat up all of your barrels but if you just make meals, you'll wind up with barrels. That should solve all problems.