The Can Can!

[Razors Edge ★]

...replace the bottle pretty well!  All of a sudden, a TON of different beer can options are becoming available. Often a can and bottle option of a brew.  This is a very nice change. I feel like cans fit my cooler more efficiently, and, while camping, they crush up fairly small and will not shatter if busted.  I'd say almost a third of the beer I have bought recently has been in can form.  Pretty neat.  My locals breweries and my go-to bigger breweries (New Belgium or Shiner) are going strong into cans. Maybe we should thank Dale's Pale Ale?

Tom

[Reverend_Maynard]

Yes, everyone does cans around here now.  It's to the point where it's the opposite of what it was 10 years ago.  If you were in a can back then, no one wanted to drink you.  Now people avoid bottles.

[TrentonMakes]

I went to a microbrewery in the South Jersey town where I used to live.  Sitting at the bar I saw people walking in and ordering beer to go but instead of growlers they were getting 32-ounce cans - filled fresh from the tap and then sealed by a machine behind the bar.

Not everyone is taking their beer camping, or to a music festival.  A six pack of bottles fits just fine in my refrigerator and in my recycle bucket.  But it's nice to have convenient can options for when those times arise.

[Razors Edge ★]

8 minutes ago, TrentonMakes said:

I went to a microbrewery in the South Jersey town where I used to live.  Sitting at the bar I saw people walking in and ordering beer to go but instead of growlers they were getting 32-ounce cans - filled fresh from the tap and then sealed by a machine behind the bar.

Not everyone is taking their beer camping, or to a music festival.  A six pack of bottles fits just fine in my refrigerator and in my recycle bucket.  But it's nice to have convenient can options for when those times arise.

Yeah - I prefer drinking beer from a bottle over a can, but when drinking from a glass, the can seems like the better option all around.  This trend has been taking shape for a while now, and I was even correct in my Dale's Pale Ale remark (that's rare!):

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Craft brewers love cans because they better protect beer from light and oxygen—two of a brew’s greatest enemies. Light exposure is what makes beer “skunk,” or smell awful. Light penetrates glass bottles, even the dark brown ones, but it doesn’t go through aluminum cans. And unlike a bottle cap, the seal on top of a can doesn’t let any oxygen in or out.

Concerns about canned beer bearing a metallic taste, which once was a factor that made bottles more appealing, should be long gone now. Decades ago, when the cans were made of tin and lined with lead, that was a valid worry. Today’s cans are made from aluminum and have a water-based polymer lining, though, so the beer doesn’t even touch the metal.

American craft brewer Oskar Blues is credited with kicking off the craft canning trend in 2002, with the success of its Dale’s Pale Ale .

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I also think, to some extent, the no glass bottles at sporting events has to help too.  Not directly since they made the cans shaped like bottles for the most part, but it did likely get folks used to cans again.

Tom

[Ralphie ★]

2 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Today’s cans are made from aluminum and have a water-based polymer lining, though, so the beer doesn’t even touch the metal.

Has the worry over BPA subsided?

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

3 hours ago, TrentonMakes said:

instead of growlers they were getting 32-ounce cans - filled fresh from the tap and then sealed by a machine behind the bar.

They called them “Crowlers” when I got one from Fulton Chain Craft Brewery a few weeks ago.

It’s actually a better option than glass growlers, in some cases - like when you end up buying something you didn’t plan on and didn’t bring a growler with you. (Which is why I have five of the damned things).