Can It!

Take the snark out of your bark

To begin today we must open our minds and remove the attitude we have about certain beers. The crux of this attitude I am asking for is that you should drink what you like and therefore, so should everyone else. I like craft beers and the craft brew community a lot (I include consumers in that community) but occasionally you'll find some snobbery toward some specific brands: Bud, Miller, Coors otherwise known as mass produced or corn adjunct beer. Here's the deal, you may not prefer this beer but someone else might love it and that is a-OK. Afterall, these big players had a lot to do with bringing beer back after Prohibition so before you bark some snark at someone who is a Coors Gal or Bud Boy remember that you don't want to be judged for what you like to drink. Cool?

OK, now that you've released some of your judgement with a deep breath and a long sip we can get into exploring why canned beer is a fair method of packaging any beer, craft or otherwise. Just because a beer is in a can as opposed to a bottle in no way means that it is inferior. In fact, canning beer offers a lot of benefits.

First come the environmental impacts which should be pretty obvious. Recycling aluminum is more efficient and accessible. Transporting aluminum cans is cheaper and requires less fossil fuel because you can pack in more (this is going to be a recurring theme-more is more). Then there's a phrase you hear breweries that can say a lot, "It's easy to pack cans in and pack them out." Environmentally this means that, in theory, you'd take your waste with you.

This point also segues us into the next impacts: it makes beer more active. You can pack cans into your backpack, cooler, pockets, fanny pack more easily than bottles which means you'll bring that favorite beer camping, hiking, skiing, mountain biking, fishing, to the beach, lake, river, picnic and on and on. Including [insert your favorite activity here]!They're also less dangerous if you drop them on the dock while barefoot. Broken glass is the least fun.

The final point is that it protects the beer better. Bottles allow light and oxygen into the product and can alter the yeast activity and fermentation. This means bottles have to be more gingerly managed during transport and sales to ensure your favorite beer doesn't morph into funkyville (unless it's supposed to have some funk goin' on). Once upon a time cans impacted flavor and you'd hear, "I don't like my beer to taste like metal." In today's canned beer world, that's simply false. Current aluminum beer cans are manufactured in a way that the beer doesn't touch metal. Furthermore, if you really care for the elaborate flavors of your beer you shouldn't be drinking it out of can or bottle. The packaging is just a vessel to get it to you. Beer belongs in a glass (or OK, a plastic cup to avoid my broken glass argument above) to allow flavors and aromas to develop. Beer, like wine, was born of organic processes that need to breath and move and groove once they're released. Free the beer!

If you follow beer closely, you knew all that. But I argue there's more to discover about the value of the can and the number of breweries canning these days insists that we explore why it's valuable. I spoke with Chad Kennedy Brewmaster at Worthy Brewing last winter and he asserted that consumers want cans and explained the points laid out above. But I think it's more than that. What is it?

Branding. I attended the Popular Culture Association Conference last month and one of the most fascinating presentations I heard was about the rhetoric of packaging. It's overwhelming. Think about the last time you went to the grocery store. How many images and messages were you bombarded with. You have no idea. So when we stand in an aisle with tons of products that by basic definition are the same: cookies, pasta, milk, beer, our brains are overwhelmed and we choose things based on brand recognition. What does this have to do with beer? Well, a can is an entire slate available for branding whereas a bottle has limited label space that is more damageable. Check out 21st Amendment's use of the entire can which uses art to define a uniquely 21st Amendment product. Or Oskar Blues' cans, arguably the brewery whose canning started the revolution. There is no doubt in my mind when I see red, blue, and white coupled with that Dale's Pale Ale logo in the specifically Oskar Blues font what product I am looking at. The can allows for more individuality and personality. More recognition and loyalty.

A lot of new breweries are preferring cans. When I chatted with Tonya Overstreet of Swing Tree Brewing she was enthusiastic about all of the standard responses for a canned product. But I assert there is a unique benefit for breweries who are just entering the market and it relates to distribution. Check out the documentary Beer Wars which is "watch instantly" on Netflix. Breaking into the shelf space is challenging and there is not a lot of real estate to occupy. Well, let's apply this packing theory one more time. If it's more efficient to transport because you can pack more in then it also must be more efficient to stock because it takes up less room on the shelf and in the case. This offers a win to the new, low barrel brewery who says, "I just need enough for a row of cans to squeeze in."

Other excellent canning reasons? Sure! You can crush a can for recycling meaning you don't have to take as many trips to your curb or recycling center. Cans retain cold better than bottles so you can leave it out of the cooler for a longer period before it warms up (unless it's supposed to warm up). There's that great "click-psssshhhhhhhh" sound when you open a can of beer.

I'm not asserting that every single beer should be canned. Some beers need the bottle whether it be the volume or an ongoing yeast reaction. What I am asking is that you give canned beer a chance, put your assumptions and judgements aside, and open yourself up to the possibilities that CAN be found under the tab.