Bottle vs can

I used to work in a chemistry lab and I routinely sealed prepared reagents with beer style caps, in air-free atmosphere. This is done for safe storage and easy removal of small amounts - the cap is not all metal and has a self-sealing polymer septum in the middle. My point it - these things were much, much more sensitive than beer, to everything, and they survived perfectly fine.

 

I've always thought that canned beer can sometimes get a metallic taste as the aluminum reacts to certain ingredients. With glass you don't have that problem. If there is a lining then that is another issue as now people are finding that canned goods leach chemicals into food. So I think bottles preserve the true taste of the beer without any alteration.

 

Bottles. Seven-ounce brown bottles. For everything.

 

Most of the beers that I prefer to drink come in bottles. For instance I just can't see pouring a Rochefort, Cantillon, Orval and similar beers out of a can. To each his or her own though.

On occasion I like a good pale ale or pils and then in that case a bottle or a can seems appropriate.

 

I don't buy that argument either. To me it's all about cost. Cans are cheaper to manufacturers, and for a long time cans were relegated to holding the likes of Natural Light, while the more upscale beers were sold in bottles. In fact, for years I had rule - skip everything that can be bought in cans. So whatever line of bullshit your brewer is trying to sell you, the only real reason is that canning is cheaper.

 

You make a lot of sense. My mind thinks bottles are better because they won’t impart any metallic flavor, but if I’m honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had a canned beer that gave me a metallic vibe.

That said, my bias was so pronounced that I passed on buying A Deal With the Devil because it was a waxed can. I really like barleywines, and that’s supposed to be super awesome. It was in a can, so...

Minds are terrible places to be.

 

I don’t buy the can argument either. Beer goes in my fridge or in a cool dark place- I don’t expose it to light. How long are people keeping bottles of beer that they worry about oxidation? I drink my hoppies before they fade, which is probably well before a bottle would show any oxidation. My stouts age for a few years- doesn’t the canning manufacturer only guarantee beer stability in a can for a year? I drink my beer out of glasses not bottles or cans (ironically as I write this
I’m actually drinking a beer out of a bottle because I know it isn’t very good and it isn’t worthy of my time to pour it into a glass like I do with 99% of my beers and then hand clean the glass). If cans or bottles were a superior vessel to drink out of, bars and breweries would put their draft pours in them. I just don’t like beer touching an artificial liner in a can, glass seems safer.

 

I always picked up bottles but since covid-19 took over everything i have seen more cans in the market. I recently picked up a box of cans and i think im happy to take both now. I dont know why i was so anti can but a pandemic has opened my eyes.

 

It is not me but all of my local beer retailers have lots and lots of old beer on their shelves. Lots of oxidation is occurring (or has occurred) prior to purchase.

Cheers!

 

In general, I find a can is the better vessel for packaging and storing beer.

However, glass has one big advantage, which is that since it is thicker, it retains its coldness and insulates the beer inside better than a can does. When I'm not drinking out of a glass (for whatever reason), I would rather drink from a bottle than a can, because the beer inside will stay cold better.

Enjoying a few Sierra Nevadas while tending the grill for a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon is a great example of a time I prefer a bottled beer.

 

I CANnot believe that no one has invoked the name of woodyChANdler, founder of The CANQuest (tm)! It is one man's stated quest to drink, review & rate EVERY CANned beer in existence, beginning in early-2004.

My CANtics are legendary & Russ Powell of "Craft CANs" + his partner in crime, @Another6Pack plus myself are generally recognized as the earliest ChANpions of CANned craft beers.

My current sCANce is that while all beers CAN be CANned, not all of them should be. Fruited sours are notorious for beCANming grenades if not CANtinually refrigerated.

Also, part of the AL CAN shortage is due to the standard packaging format of 16-fl oz vice 12-fl oz, CANpled with a lack of incentive to recycle. Larger format with less returning to the recycling stream.

 

I understand why someone would have a position like yours, but please don't characterize someone who prefers glass bottles as someone who is suffering from imaginary factors and the opposite position being one of "science." If science is simply looking at data, then anyone can pick the data that they want to support whatever idea they already have in their head and then ignore everything else. I don't know if that's infinitely different than imagining things to support an idea. Someone can take the exact same "science vs psychosomatic" position as you but flip it to be pro-bottle and anti-can.

 

Modern cans are preferred for me over bottles. The old fashioned cans of the 70s were lined, but the cans imparted a metallic taste if you drank it from the can, those cans were about bulletproof.

 

I kind of like the aesthetics and variation the bottles provide. But...shipping costs. The glass doubles the weight of the beer. For that reason I CAN get beer at the same cost from the States as from the UK, as Europe still seems to be in love with bottles.

 

I like the nostalgia of drinking a beer from a bottle, to be honest. I get that obviously canned beer is fresher for styles like DIPA etc, but taking a gulp from a bottle of miscellaneous lager will always seem nostalgic to me. Long Live The Bottle!

 

And yet in the US bottled German beer costs the same or less than canned domestic analogs.

 

Are there any studies that measured oxidization in the same batch of beer in bottles vs cans at set periods of age?

 

A truth for one brewer's setup won't necessarily be the same for another's. If I remember correctly, respected brewers have talked here about having lower TPO in their bottles vs cans and vice versa. (That's not even getting into TPO variations on one system.) So a study like the above would only provide one piece of a very complicated puzzle. Would you rather have a can from a brewer (or packager) who did a terrible job at reducing oxygen or a bottle from a brewer that was diligent about having low oxygen levels?

 

Prefer cans myself. Never had any metallic issues or quality problems. But Pliny is in bottles, so too is BareBottle. Lagunitas still has bottles, as well as Stone, Goose Island, Bottle Logic, etc.

No real problems with either packaging. So long as quality is there, I really don't care.

With shipping and overall convenience, the can has many advantages.

 

I don't really have a preference unless I'm going to be drinking at the beach or something like that where I have to pack in/pack out my trash, I prefer cans 100% of the time then. Not a fan of 16oz cans in 4 packs though.