I think quite a few people are aware that Aslin has been looking to expand since theei popularity has grown to the point of them having issues producing enough beer for their avid customers. Here's a story (and video) about the expansion of volume with new brew equipment: http://craftbeernation.org/blog/aslin-beer-expansion-plans/ Apparently they might also be doing some large format bottles in the [near] future.
I don't want to watch a 30 minute video, did they say why they were going with bottles instead of cans?
For those too busy: The first 10 minutes is most of the business and interesting stuff. First is the new tanks talk from about 2 minutes to about 6 minutes The bottle commentary is about 6:15 - 6:30 minutes in, and lasts until about 10 minutes. The rest of the video is a bunch of different stuff, mainly talking about upcoming collaborations they have coming out. Basically it seems they are going to be doing the bottles for releases versus doing Crowlers. The Crowlers I believe will still be available if my listening comprehension didn't fail me, for "on demand" sale.
They said they are going to do 500ml and 750ml because they like the look of bottles better and the pour sizes. They also said that canning had more chance of oxygen being introduced during packaging.
There are many reasons why we are choosing to bottle vs. canning starting out. One being we would have to use a mobile canning unit due to the lack of space in our current brewery. Right now we are more comfortable putting our beers in bottles then in cans because of a few reasons, but one being we can control our oxygen levels in our beer with less of a capital (i.e. time, money, & space) investment. The size of our bottles were determined based on beer style and what we thought consumers would prefer when purchasing our product. We apologize it may not have come across this was in the interview. We also love feedback, good or bad, so if you have any please let us know! Cheers, Andrew
Everything in the interview came across fine. Was just trying to give a brief summary. Since you are open to feedback I will say that I think the 500ml and 750ml bottles usually favor the brewery and not the consumer. Going to use Tired hands Alien church as an example since your ipas probably contain about the same amount of quality ingredients. One 4 pack(64oz) is $16. My guess is for a single ipa you will charge $6 for a 500ml bottle (16.9oz). That makes a 4 pack(67.6oz) $24. $8 more for an extra 3.6ozs. Either way I like your beers and will continue to buy them regardless of the format. But probably not as much as I would at a lower price point.
Yeah the cynical side of me sees this mostly as a way to keep prices high, since $6-$8/16 oz is generally considered acceptable for a bottle but not for a can.
Love Aslin beers and I'm glad they are expanding. I prefer cans to bottles all day. Four or six packs of 16 oz cans are my favorite. Sold so quick also.
