Cans - will you pay a premium?

No, no extra bucks from me for the privilege of drinking beer out of a can. I'm buying the beer and the vessel as a unit, just to get to the contents. I could care less about the container the beer comes in.

 

Cans used to be cheaper than bottles, when it came to the same beer. At least that's what I always remember seeing.

 

I think you may be right on many aspects but I suspect much of the increased acceptance is due to more and more Millennials being and becoming craft beer drinkers (they are more into cans than those who have been into craft beer for a couple decades or more). I'm just a bit skeptical that there's a big sway of opinion from the latter group of people.

Who knows... time will tell. I think that longterm you're probably right that cans will become more the norm.

 

Nope.

 

Cans are always less expensive than bottles at Pennsylvania beer distributors.

Bottle shops like Wegman's though, that can only sell 128 ounces maximum per transaction may see fit to markup cans.

Cans although they block solar radiation better, don't keep cold as long as bottles.

I think the Sapporo can is the only one that I would rather have than a bottle because of it's unique thermal properties.

 

In the UK you always pay more for cans.

 

People will pay a premium if the quality is higher. I happily pay up to double the price for beer in cask over that in bottles or cans.In terms of value rather than price this is justified.

 

cans are just the shit unfortunately...salesmen know this so they CAN charge more. most people will go for it...me personally? ive never been put in the situation to choose. I mostly see the prices the same actually. sculpin is a good example

 

I will pay more for cans if the product inside is highly perishable like an IPA or pilsner. (Sculpin definitely appears to hold up better in cans.)

 

shouldn't beer in cans be cheaper? Or at least the same price as an equally sized bottle? That's the way I usually see things here in PA. And no, I wouldn't pay a premium for cans. All other things being equal, I would buy whichever format was cheaper.

 

It's the opposite from what I've seen here in Georgia. Cans of Sculpin cost $1 less than bottles (six pack). It makes an easy choice for me since I prefer cans anyway.

 

Hopefully someone in the beer industry will chime in to this discussion:

@Sixpoint, @Peter_Wolfe, @sierranevadabill, @bulletrain76,

It has been my personal experience in the distant past that BMC type beers were sold cheaper in cans vs. bottles. For example, at a PA beer retail distributor a case of canned Budweiser was priced lower than a case of bottled Budweiser.

Given todays craft beer market I am guessing that the beer industry thinks the market will be willing to pay more for canned beer? About 1-2 months ago a local beer retailer obtained their first shipment of the canned Firestone Walker beers; they had Union Jack and Easy Jack (no Pivo Pils for some stupid reason). There were no prices on these new products yet. I went to the cash register with a 6-pack of canned Union Jack and a BIG smile on my face. When I got rung up and the dude said: $14.99 the smile quickly went off of my face. I was tempted to pull my credit card back and loudly say: No thanks! That is way too much”. Instead like a zombie I just handed my credit card over.

I can state that I will never, ever pay 15 bucks for a 6-pack of canned Firestone Walker again. I am unsure who in the beer industry chain (Brewery? Wholesale Distributor? Retailer?) is driving a price of 15 bucks for this beer. For completeness a 6-pack of bottled Union Jack at that retailer is $12.49.

Cheers!

 

I work at a bottle shop and know that Firestone cans are cheaper by the case than the bottles. While Ballast Point are the same price bottle/can. I cant imagine why cans would cost more and I would never pay a premium for them myself.

 

No I wouldn't pay more for cans over bottles. If it were a difference of a dollar or something, and the cans were much fresher, and I REALLY wanted to drink that specific beer then and there, I'd consider it. Otherwise nope.

 

All else being equal (the beer itself, etc.) cans should be cheaper. For the big brewer, the raw package costs about half as much. For smaller craft guys, that gap is closer but cans are still cheaper to procure. The savings cascade down the supply chain - cans cost considerably less to transport because they weigh so much less - this saves the distributors and retailers a lot of diesel fuel. This is not a small expense! Cans versus bottles can be millions of dollars a year in transport fuel savings.

If you're being charged more for cans, I imagine it's because of a perceived demand; it has nothing to do with wholesale cost. It's fairly ironic as well, considering bottles used to be the "high class" package, and now people are slowly drifting in the other direction.

 

They will. They've already recently gone through their own miniature version of this with crew caps versus cork. Screw caps are superior in every way; you can have a fixed (or no) amount of oxygen ingress, you avoid the possibility of cork taint, you don't need any special tools to open your wine, etc. etc. Despite that, people hung onto corks because of the image; wine folks are even more susceptible to this than beer folks, in my humble opinion. It took a few winemakers ignoring the popular sentiment and using screw caps on wines which scored extremely high to start to change people's minds. Nowadays screw caps are generally accepted and can be found on very popular high-end wines (which would have caused horror not long ago).

Craft beer in cans is headed down the same path. I imagine we'll see wine in other packages before long; I'm already seeing wine in draft systems, foil packs, and cans in the marketplace. The wine snobs will hold out until there's a wine they "just have to have" in a package they don't like - they'll alter their viewpoint to make it palatable and life will go on.

 

I've been going for cans ever since I saw some article about sun light killing beer. That and a lot of public places do not allow glass. Not sure I would switch back to bottles for a few cents saved but it will be interesting to see if the prices truly are different.

 

Going to different breweries a few cite one major reason they've started canning: less expensive. Their less expensive to ship and you can ship more in a tractor trailer than bottles. Seems their being less expensive is only beneficial to the brewery and not the end user.

 

I don't always have Sculpin available to me. However when I have found it, I have consistently found the cans to be better preserved (ie. fresher tasting) than their counterparts in bottles. I love Sculpin and if given the option, for that reason I always go for the canned option when available. I will note that I've always found them at the same price in TX.

Granted, if really fresh in front of the brewery, I would probably take the bottles because I too, think they give a better image. So to answer OP's question, I would say, I'd even pay a few cents extra for the canned option mainly because of the freshness issue I've found, particularly with Sculpin.