Mobile Canning

Canning beer may offer a host of benefits for a brewery—better-quality beer, ease of transport and good environmental karma—but for many breweries, canning is easier said than done. For one thing, canning lines are large and expensive. Cans have to be pre-printed, and they must be purchased in expensive, large quantities. Storage of those cans is difficult for a lot of smaller breweries; where do you stow away pallet upon pallet of empty cans?

But mobile canning operations are providing a solution. Much like a mobile bottling line, these canning lines provide all the necessary equipment, supplies and know-how, so brewers can focus on what they do best: brewing. “Mobile canning has been great for Payette Brewing,” says brewer and owner Michael Francis, of Boise, Idaho. “It allowed us to get into the off-premise market sooner than we otherwise would have been able to, and it lowered the risk of entry since we didn’t have to purchase the canning line.”

Unlike permanent canning lines, which use pre-printed cans that need to be stored on-site, mobile lines utilize a pre-printed plastic sleeve that wraps around the can for labeling and looks just like the pre-printed ones. This means breweries don’t have to store cans and also allows for runs of smaller batches—a benefit for both small breweries and larger ones that want to can smaller amounts of seasonal or one-off beers.

Payette contracts with Northwest Canning, based in Portland, Ore. Northwest makes the trip to Payette every other week and cans 1,800 to 2,400 cases. Francis says that mobile canning lets Payette test the market: “Had we started by purchasing the line that I was looking at a year ago, we would have outgrown that in a matter of months. Instead, with actual sales data, instead of hopeful projections, and established relationships with different off-premise chains, we were able to put in an order for a 12-head rotary filler.”

Many of these operations partner with Colorado-based Mobile Canning Systems, which has been successful in large part due to their partnership with Wild Goose Technologies, the leading equipment manufacturer and an affiliate-based business model that is helping MCS expand across the country. Iron Heart Canning is one of the newest MCS affiliates, and the first mobile canning company to enter the New England market. “[Mobile Canning Systems is] not only helping us to outfit and fine-tune our equipment, but they’re also training us on the system and allowing us to run our equipment on their accounts for a full week,” says Iron Heart founder and co-owner Tyler Willie.

First up: Westfield River Brewing Company, where Willie will wheel out the Wild Goose MC-250 and connect it directly to the brewery’s finishing tanks. The system is able to fill 40 cans per minute and up to 80 barrels per day. “Our goal is to be their canning infrastructure,” Willie says. “We allow breweries of any size to focus on their craft, while we focus on ours.” ■