A single oak barrel has spent 30 years traveling America’s craft beer scene

Democracy Dies successful Darkness

Over 3 decades, the PH1 tube has bounced astir the state from brewery to brewery, aging experimental sour beers and picking up much quality astatine each stop. (Taylor Glascock/For The Washington Post)

CHICAGO — John Laffler is tense astir making his people connected American brewing history.

On a Thursday day successful mid-May, Laffler holds an electrical branding robust implicit an upright tube successful a backroom of his Lincoln Park brewery. The barrelhead is acned with 55 expressions of the aforesaid half-dollar-sized logo: off colour brewing successful lowercase publication astir Mischief, the establishment’s atom rodent mascot. Some of the marks are truthful acheronian that the scorched lettering bleeds together; others truthful airy arsenic to beryllium astir invisible.