I am having a problem with brewing, too.... I have a 3x3 stockpile right next to the still, which takes plump helmets, pig tails, cave wheat, and sweet pods in barrels from the central food stockpile. This stockpile then gives to the still. The small stockpile is set to "links only". There are tons of plump helmets in the small stockpile, and they are turned on for brewing in the kitchen. I have one dwarf with brewing assigned, and all hauling turned off. I also have plenty of barrels (10 or 12) in the furniture stockpile. I have also tried removing all burrows from overtop the still and small stockpile like suggested above. The only dwarves I have assigned to burrows are the on-duty soldiers watching the drawbridge for thieves.
When I try to add a task to the still, "brew a plant" is shown in red. If I then press "b" to brew anyway, it says "Unrotten DRINK_MAT-producing plants", "Empty Food storage item", "DRINK_MAT Drinks [5]", and "SEED_MAT Seeds" in white. Then far below in red it says "Takes place at Still".
This is a reclaimed fortress (alligators ate all my dorfs in the first month the first time I started it), so my first thought was that there was a bug where it wouldn't use "(barrels)", but upon checking closer, there are non-reclaimed barrels in the furniture stockpile, too. I tried making a bunch more anyway just to see, and it still won't take the brewing job.
Any ideas? I am at a loss. According to the wiki, I have everything I need, but am I missing something that has changed in this new release???
Thanks, y'all.
Edit: Maybe I should also mention, the stacks of plump helmets in the barrels range from 1 to 6 items. Could this be causing it to think there aren't big enough stacks to brew? I've never been able to figure out how to combine the stacks, though....
Reedit: I've also tried tearing down the still and building a new one in case the workshop was bugged out or something, but that didn't make it happen, either.