Not only was Barclay’s innovative in lager brewing, it was also one of the first breweries to start canning. And there was one beer where these two acts of daring combined: Sparkling Beer.
As more breweries choose cans, often at minimum quantities, the three can producers—Colorado’s Ball Corp., London’s Rexam and Pennsylvania’s Crown Cork & Seal—are struggling with an influx of new orders.
Three years after Jenn Coyle co-founded The Can Van with three fellow MBA students, mobile canning has “almost become trendy,” she says. In July 2014 they canned more volume in the first half of the month than they did in their entire first year of business.
For many breweries, canning is easier said than done. Much like a mobile bottling line, mobile canning lines provide all the necessary equipment, supplies and know-how, so brewers can focus on what they do best: brewing.
Drone to drop beer to concertgoers; Alabama passes bill legalizing homebrewing; Modern Times Brewing sets Kickstarter record; more breweries switch up containers; and Oregon votes to designate brewer’s yeast “Official State Microbe.”
Switching from the once-ubiquitous brown bottles to cans may have been novel nine years ago, but today, it’s just one way craft brewers are reexamining their relationship with the container industry in hopes of shaving costs and putting better beer on the shelves.
Over the years, brewers have come up with four basic types of packaging—casks, bottles, kegs and cans. Each type of package protects beer in different ways, and can cause the beer to taste quite different.
The end of cardboard beer coasters?; Atlantic Brewing acquires Bar Harbor Brewing; Kirin seeks to acquire Lion Nathan’s; Maine’s changing growler laws; A beery economic stimulus; Dogfish Head begins expansion process; and Red Stripe to can.
