Craft Beer Has Found a Happy New Home in Cans and Growlers
ONCE UPON A TIME, YOU COULD JUDGE A BEER ON looks alone. Cheap, crappy quaffs were found in aluminum cylinders that, when empty, you could flatten beneath your feet—or against your forehead. Craft beer sat inside comparatively elegant 12- or 22-ounce bottles, or perhaps Champagne carafes sealed with a cork. Why slum it in cans? Because they might be the best container for beer, brewers are discovering. Combine that with a resurgence of the refillable glass jugs dubbed growlers, and you have totally new options for toting craft beer.
Can It
Jeff Gill’s journey to canned beer started with a phone call. On the other end of the line was an avid drinker of Gill’s Tallgrass IPA, one of the flagship brews crafted at his Manhattan, Kansas, brewery.
The drinker had no quibbles with the quality of the bold, complex ale. Instead, the problem was the twenty-odd cases of empty glass bottles hunkering in his garage.
“Can you pick up the bottles to reuse them?” the caller asked. He was located in western Kansas, hours from the brewery. It was too far for the Tallgrass employees to travel.
“Why don’t you just recycle the glass and cardboard?” Gill offered.
No local recycler, the man replied. In that case, the empty bottles would enter a landfill. This bugged Gill, a former environmental geologist. He started researching, discovering the serious waste associated with paper six-pack holders and glass bottles—craft beer’s go-to packaging. More than 75 percent of bottles ended up as a landfll fodder, a statistic that stuck in his craw.
“I started looking at the different facets of the issue,” recalls Gill. He pondered shifting his packaging line from bottles to cans, which are recycled at a 50 percent-plus clip. “In November [2009], I started talking to my wife. It took a day and a half to convince her,” Gill says, adding, “which is when I knew I should do it. It took me a month and a half to convince her to let me name my milk stout Buffalo Sweat.” By spring 2010, the canned switchover was complete. Tallgrass beers were now sold in four-packs of sixteen-ounce cans adorned with colorful, carnival-esque artwork. “We’re trying to change the perception that you can’t have classy beer in a can,” Gill says.
For many serious beer quaffers, can is a four-letter word. The aluminum cylinders are seen as down-market, synonymous with mass-market brewskis sold by the 12-, 18-, 24, or 30-pack—quantity, not quality. But over the past decade, the maligned package has quietly made inroads into the craft-beer world.
Now the canned-beer craze has caught on at more than 100 breweries nationwide, from big boys such as Brooklyn Brewery, New Belgium, and Bell’s (which offers five-liter mini kegs of brands such as Two Hearted Ale) on down to teensy start-ups including Maine’s Baxter Brewing and Italy’s Bad Attitude. This is no fly-by-night fad. Besides being environmentally beneficial and going where bottles can’t tread (backpacking, the lake, the beach, stadiums), cans keep beer fresher and more flavorful. When it comes to canning, there is accounting for taste.
Big Bucks and Stinky Skunks
Traditionally, canning has been a high-volume process, with filling machines cranking out tens of thousands of cases of beer daily, says Ray Daniels, director of the Cicerone Certification Program. “You don’t buy that sort of equipment—with price tags in the multiple millions of dollars—unless you can run it full-time and make the investment pay,” he says.
Since some small craft brewers distribute fewer than 10,000 cases a year, the economics didn’t add up. Brewers made do with bottling, a process not without its flaws. Squirting suds into bottles is messy business, with “beer getting squirted everywhere,” Gill says. “As a brewer, all that waste made me cringe.”
Then there’s the issue of the bottles themselves. They’re fragile and prone to breakage. The caps are not always sealed properly, letting carbonation and beer leak out. Plus, beer is a photosensitive foodstuff. Whether the glass is brown, green, or clear, every bottle lets in UV light, which can cause beer to smell skunky. That’s because of the presence of hops, which, when boiled, release isohumulones. When light strikes these chemicals, they create chemical compounds found in skunk spray.
Canned beer prevents such ailments. And that tinny taste? It’s long gone, due to water-based polymer linings that prevent beer from coming into contact with the aluminum. Yes, there’s a bit of cancerous boogeyman BPA in a can’s epoxy-resin lining, but you’d need to drink more than 450 cans of beer to exceed the daily recommended dose, according to the EPA. And I doubt you’re that thirsty. This is all good news. Now, if only craft brewers could find a cost-effective way to can their beers.
Just the Fax, Ma’am
America’s canned-beer resurgence couldn’t have happened without a Canadian firm. In 1999, Calgary-based Cask Brewing Systems developed a two-container, hand-canning system for smaller breweries. A few years later, Cask sent a fax touting its invention to Dale Katechis, owner of Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colorado, which crafts uncompromising brews such as the ferociously hopped Dale’s Pale Ale and Old Chub, a tar-tinged Scottish-style ale packing a smoky punch. “We laughed hysterically for six months,” Katechis recalls of receiving the fax. “Then one day I stopped laughing.”
Beyond the obvious benefits, Katechis realized that cans were ideal for Oskar’s hiker/ fisherman fan base. It was far easier to pack beer in—and out—without the added weight of glass. In November 2002, the hand-canning began. The results were delicious and, oddly, therapeutic. Letters poured into Oskar about men drinking canned beer without feeling any shame. To meet demand, the company switched to Cask’s automated canning machine. The “canned-beer apocalypse,” as Katechis likes to call it, had befallen craft brewing.
“We get a great deal of joy out of handing a nonbeliever a can of our beer and watching their head spin around,” Katechis says. “They just experienced something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”
Problems in Aluminum Paradise
By now, canned beer’s benefits are well documented. But we live in an image-based society where looks often rule the roost—at the expense of common sense. “Consumers prefer bottles, plain and simple,” Ray Daniels says. “They have a better image and a better reputation, whether deserved or not.”
Tallgrass Brewing’s Gill echoes that sentiment. When he tried selling his canned brews to restaurants, bars, and other on-premise locations, a typical response was, “We don’t want a can in here. We’re a classy place, and we want a bottle,” Gill says. It’s an irrational prejudice, sure, but you can understand why some consumers would be loath to embrace a container you can crush against your forehead. When the craft-beer movement kicked off, brewers turned to brown bottles, in part to separate their products from green-bottled foreign imports (Heineken, Grolsch) and market-dominating macrobrews. Compared to a squat, utilitarian can of Coors, a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale looks as elegant as a luxury sedan. Craft beer may not resonate the same way when packaged in an aluminum container.
“In the early days, there might have been sideways glances from people who consider themselves beer geeks, but we’ve found the craft-beer drinker is more than willing to embrace the cans,” says Bryan Simpson, the media relations director for New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado. Since the brewery’s 1991 inception, it has built a business model on innovative ales and environmental stewardship.
Thus, it was a no-brainer when New Belgium decided to can some of its flagship Fat Tire Amber Ale in summer 2008. The familiar product in an unfamiliar package “immediately sold ahead of forecast,” Simpson says. In fact, canned Fat Tire was such a hit that New Belgium expanded its canning efforts to include its summery Sunshine Wheat and Ranger IPA.
Chicago’s Half Acre Beer Company also opted to make the switch to cans in 2010, moving its Daisy Cutter Pale from 22-ounce bottles into 16-ounce cans sold by the four-pack. “We decided to go the sixteen-ounce route because these beers are truly made to be poured into a glass,” explains PJ Fischer, the director of sales and marketing at Half Acre, which also cans its Gossamer Golden Ale and hoppy brown Over Ale. “This allows the beer to breathe, and then the consumer also gets the beer’s aroma. It is a proven fact that most of what we taste actually comes from smell.” Besides, he adds, “pouring a sixteen-ounce can into a pint glass just looks so much better than a twelve-ounce can.”
Canned Revelry
Every month seems to bring news of another brewery beginning to can. Avery, Harpoon, Santa Fe Brewing, Redhook Brewery—with so many craft breweries electing to can, it’s now possible to stock a bar serving dozens of different canned craft beers. That’s the idea behind Full Circle Bar, in Williamsburg, which opened in fall 2009 with a mission to become New York’s finest canned-beer bar. While drinkers roll rounds of Skee-Ball at one of three bleacher-flanked games (the saloon is home to Brewskee-Ball, the “first-ever national Skee-Ball league,” as the owners like to call it), they can slurp more than twenty different canned barley pops, including Butternuts Beer and Ale’s Moo Thunder Stout and 21st Amendment’s Back in Black IPA. For its first anniversary party, Full Circle celebrated by hosting Candemonium, a weekend-long festival featuring more than 40 canned beers.
It’s an all-aluminum gala that has been embraced by Oskar Blues Brewery, which hosted the Burning Can Beer Festival (a riff on the Nevada desert’s artsy Burning Man bash) in its hometown of Lyons, Colorado. Additionally, there’s the annual Canfest, in Reno, Nevada, which began in 2009. “It’s a celebration of the can,” says festival cofounder Doug Booth, whose Reno-based Buckbean Brewing Company sells its Original Orange Blossom Ale, Black Noddy Lager, and Tule Duck Red Ale by the sixteen-ounce can. “This was our way of announcing to the world, ‘You don’t only drink beer out of a bottle.’ We want to show that great beer comes out of a can.” The first year, there were more than thirty breweries represented, with awards bestowed in categories that included pale ales and IPAs, dark ales, and lagers. For the future? “My goal is to have a canned beer from every single state,” Booth says. “In the next ten years, that may be possible.”
Eleven to Try
Daisy Cutter Pale Ale
Half Acre Beer Company,
ABV: 5.2%
Powered by a five-pronged hop assault (Warrior, Columbus, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo), Daisy is a hazy orange beauty, perfumed to the hilt with pine, citrus, and tropical fruit. It drinks easy and clean, all dainty grassy bitterness and sweet malt.
Red Racer Pale Ale
Central City Brewing Co.
ABV: 5%
Central City may be located in British Columbia, but its pale ale is a quintessential American hop bomb. Red Racer is a bubbly golden beauty with a flowery, citrusy tang and an even keel of malt sweetness.
Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer
21st Amendment Brewery
ABV: 4.9%
Among these San Franciscans’ many canned delights (Brew Free or Die IPA, Monk’s Blood Belgian dark ale), I like their summertime specialty best. It’s fermented with ripe, red watermelon puree, creating a strawberry-blonde sipper that’s crisp and tart.
Happy Camper IPA
Santa Fe Brewing
ABV: 6.6%
Among the canned treats from New Mexico’s oldest craft brewery (Freestyle Pilsner, Oktoberfest), I’m most smitten by the Happy Camper. It has a big ol’ malty body, and a sweet and sturdy framework that can withstand the hop assault. Happy is zesty. Happy is floral. Happy is grapefruity. Happy is heaven.
Ten Fidy Imperial Stout
Oskar Blues Brewery
ABV: 10.5%
As the instigators of the self-professed “canned-beer apocalypse,” this Colorado concern sells beers only by the aluminum vessel. Mama’s Little Yella Pils may be a summer refresher, but I like cracking this canned monster stout. Though the dense, creamy stout rocks a ludicrous 98 IBUs, the bitterness is swaddled by the flavors of gooey brownies, espresso, and caramel.
Modus Hoperandi India Pale Ale
Ska Brewing
ABV: 6.8%
If you adore a stinky, moodaltering green herb, this grass-colored can from Durango, Colorado–based Ska contains your perfect potion. Modus Hoperandi is a 65-IBU ode to hoppy excess, flaunting aromas of grapefruit and pine trees powerful enough to double as perfume. Modus goes down like resin, painting your palate with a sticky bitterness backed by a balancing sprinkle of malt sweetness. This isn’t an IPA for lily-livered drinkers—or, perhaps, law abiders.
Coconut Porter
Maui Brewing Co.
ABV: 5.7%
To make robust CoCoNut Porter, Hawaii’s Maui Brewing hand-toasts coconut flesh, then incorporates it with six kinds of barley and a couple of types of Pacific Northwest hops. The sweet, nutty coconut struts its stuff on the nose, as well as on the first silky swig. The brew also reveals flavors of chocolate, almost like a liquid mounds candy bar—in the best way imaginable.
Ashland Amber
Caldera Brewing Company
ABV: 5.4%
In this era of excessively hopped ales, it’s nice to kick back with a brew that won’t kick your butt. That’s what makes this Oregon outfit’s Ashland Amber such a delight. Ashland pours a vibrant auburn, showcasing familiar flavors of caramel and freshbaked bread. The taste follows a straightforward script, with a balanced bill of citric hops and biscuit malt. It’s a simple, snappy refreshment, an achievement worth a toast.
Pikeland Pils
Sly Fox Brewing Company
ABV: 4.9%
Whenever I spend a day by water, I like to bring a Sly Fox sixer. The Pennsylvania brewery makes classic, drinkable canned beers, such as the fruity Royal Weisse Ale, the profusely hopped 113 IPA, or, better yet, the Pikeland Pils. The pitchperfect German pilsner is as golden as a sunrise and as clear as the Caribbean, with bubbles racing breakneck to the surface. Dry, light, and easy, it’s a gulper that finishes with a splash of spicy bitterness.
Pine Belt Pale Ale
Southern Star Brewing Company
ABV: 6.3%
Everything’s bigger in Texas, including this brewery’s beers—they’re sold by the sixteen-ounce can. Does bigger mean better? Not always, but you’ll be plenty pleased when opening this pale ale. You could drink it straight out of the can, but I prefer pouring the hazy, orange-amber elixir into a mug. That way, I can savor the nose of pine resin and tropical fruit, plus the caramel and creamy malt character.
Buffalo Sweat
Tallgrass Brewing Co.
ABV: 5%
Do buffalos sweat? Darned if I know. But I do know that this Kansas brewery’s Buffalo Sweat is a knockout milk stout. Oodles of roasted barley imbue Buffalo with a deep brown hue, while the unusual addition of cream sugar makes the stout smooth, rich, and oh so drinkable. It tastes a little like coffee with a dollop of whole milk and cocoa sprinkled on top.
Primal Growler
When departing my Brooklyn apartment every morn, I throw a couple of critical items into my bag. First, due to my knee-knocking fear of dehydration, I pack a plastic Nalgene bottle brimming with water. Second, I carry a book to make my subway commute tolerable. Last, and most important for this suds geek, I bring a clean growler. I’m no morning drunk; rather, I never miss a chance to buy great beer.
Increasingly, bars, beer shops, and breweries are selling draft beer by the growler. It’s a reusable 64-ounce glass jug—often emblazoned with the logo of a brewery, pub, or brew shop—that can retain the crispness of keg-fresh brew for around a week (after opening, about 36 hours). Not that I wait that long. Heck, it takes Herculean self-restraint to not immediately guzzle the elixir, like a parched man in the desert passed a bottle of Poland Spring.
Here’s why I get schoolgirl excited: Typically, beer sold by the growler is never bottled, meaning it’s imbibed only at a brewery or a pub. However, bars can be cost prohibitive, and I’m not always flush enough to fork over $5 or $6 a pint. (New York City can bankrupt a beer lover.) However, I can usually grab a growler for anywhere from $10 to $15, netting four pints. That’s some thirst-quenching math.
However, growlers weren’t invented solely for modern-day skinflints such as myself. The concept dates back more than a century, when beer was transported from pubs to homes in a lidded tin pail. According to lore, the sloshing beer rumbled as carbon dioxide escaped—hence, growler. An alternate history: Growlers were buckets of beer given to famished factory workers, rescuing “growling” stomachs.
However, by the 1960s, growlers had pulled a dodo and disappeared. Their resurgence is due to Grand Teton Brewing, formerly the Otto Brothers’ Brewing Company, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. When the brewery opened in 1988, it was draft-only. The brothers wanted to sell takeaway beer, but a bottling line was cost prohibitive. Wise old dad suggested a blast from his past: the growler. Bingo. But instead of tin, the brothers settled on glass jugs, which they silk-screened with the company logo. In 1989, growlers were born. And my bag will never be light again.
Part of my ever-growing collection of growlers. I need a bigger apartment.
Share and Share Alike
Despite the temptation, I don’t recommend treating a growler like a Big Gulp of beer. The glass jug is the perfect size for sharing with fellow suds lovers. During dinner parties, or perhaps when a football game is on TV, I like bringing a growler of beer to pass around as if it were a jug of Carlo Rossi wine, that rotgut grape juice of my youth. Other times, I’ll invite friends to my apartment for a growler sampling session. Everyone is instructed to buy a different beer, and the growlers are opened one at a time, ensuring that the beer remains fizzy and fresh. But if you decide to drink the growler by yourself, I won’t judge. Sometimes a beer is so good, you have to be selfish.
Keep It Clean
I loathe washing dishes as much as the next man or woman, but I’ll gladly give myself dishpan hands in order to keep my growler clean. If the jug is not washed out shortly after it’s emptied, it can become a breeding ground for mold and other fungi—and not the kind reserved for sour beer. Thoroughly rinsing out the growler with hot water and scrubbing the cap should suffice, but if mold takes hold, don’t be afraid to add a bit of bleach mixed with dish soap and scalding water. Cap the growler, shake, empty, rinse. Then rinse again. Soapy residue will adversely affect the beer’s head, and you certainly don’t want to swallow a mouthful of bleach.
