The old time method of keeping wooden beer barrels seasoned by re-coating the interiors with heated pitch, or tree resin, was done in order to seal the barrels so carbon dioxide did not escape during the fermentation and aging process of the beer. Here, a cooper, most likely at a German brewery, works during the process of seasoning a barrel with pitch in this documentary pictorial study by Leipzig, Germany photographer Albin Fichte.

This image reproduced as a halftone in the July, 1902  issue of Camera Notes.