Is there really in difference between beer in a can versus in a bottle?

You are only considering the elements coming into the sealed container and not considering the desired or undesired elements going into the container at filling.

I think you mean refillable bottles are better.

 

Yes siree Bob!

Well, as a homebrewer I would be very happy if refillable bottles made a 'comeback' with commercial breweries since they are heavy duty and I can refill them many, many times with homebrew.

The Rolling Rock bottle in the below photo is a returnable bottle and I likely have reused that bottle well over 200 times to contain homebrewed beer. I am doing my part to 'save the planet'.

Cheers!

 

Overall, the entire process of transforming raw bauxite into aluminum is incredibly energy intensive, requiring copious amounts of electricity, water and resources to produce (that is the main reason why power plants are built solely to support the aluminum industry). Since pure aluminum ore is so stable, an extraordinary amount of electricity is required to yield the final product and, at least in the U.S., half of the smelting energy consumed is courtesy of coal, one of the most notoriously polluting fuel sources known to mankind. The EPA says that the release of perfluorocarbons during the aluminum smelting process are 9,200 times more harmful than carbon dioxide in terms of their affect on global warming. When bauxite is extracted from the earth, the strip-mining process removes all native vegetation in the mining region, resulting in a loss of habitat and food for local wildlife as well as significant soil erosion. The caustic red sludge and toxic mine tailings that remain are commonly deposited into excavated mine pits where they ultimately seep into aquifers, contaminating local water sources. Greenhouse gas emissions released during smelting and processing (which have been found to blanket surrounding regions with toxic vapors) include carbon dioxide, perfluorocarbons, sodium fluoride, sulfur dioxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and a vast list of other problematic elements. Particulates released during processing that are known to compromise air quality include combustion byproducts, caustic aerosols, dust from bauxite, limestone, charred lime, alumina and sodium salt.

https://recyclenation.com/2010/11/aluminum-extraction-recycling-environment/



https://www.aluminum.org/aluminum-can-advantage

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figur...and-recycling/aluminum-material-specific-data

 

We've really strayed from the initial thread post, but thank you for bringing this all up since it never seems to sink in around here. People prefer things artificially tidy rather than complicated. Stuff like the above doesn't get brought up as much now that we're past the point of making claims about any hypocrisy from Tony Magee (and also due to the prevalence of cans in craft beer).

“We’ll be the last brewery in the US to use aluminum cans”

 

Which is why Aluminum recyclers pay the most money to get used aluminum back. While I do not disagree with your facts on virgin aluminum (can't argue facts), recycled aluminum uses a fraction of that energy to melt and form back into useful aluminum.

Nothing is without disadvantage.

 

Just by a Sixer of bottle and a Sixer of cans and have someone pour you 2 glasses blind and see if you notice any differences at all. The other 10 beers you spent <$15 for...well NASCAR season is left around the corner!

 

I see what you did there

 

You lost me here.

 

Bottles are more fragile, susceptible to oxidation, and more difficult to store. Cans for the future!

 

Sorry. At this point, it's not unusual to have talk in the local forums about "brown and undrinkable" new cans of IPA due to oxidation as a result from various issues from mobile canning at the time of canning. The "brown and undrinkable" part is the drinker's characterization and the latter half of that sentence is how brewers have characterized the problem. I can't even recall ever seeing these "brown IPA" conversations on BA when local brewers favored bottles. Today, when the topic is brought up, people don't show any surprise at the situation.

You said, "There’s no way in the world you can convince me that a crimped cap is a better bet than a sealed can." The crimped cap might not be a better seal, but is it definitely not a "better bet" when BA chatter seems to indicate more issues with oxidation at filling for cans due to the realities of certain canning logistics. If you are drinking your beer fresh, should you be more concerned with a slow ingress of oxygen over a long period of time as a result of a cap... or a completely destructive amount of oxygen at filling as a result of a canning line issue? I'm obviously painting with a very broad brush here and talking about things that aren't the norm, but it doesn't mean that there isn't a degree of truth to it.

The first time I saw people associating oxidation with inappropriately darkened beer in a fresh can I was simply shocked (and this was with the rise of local brewers using mobile canners for IPAs in 16oz cans). How bad do the conditions have to be to cause such a fast and drastic change in the beer? In my limited experience, the only time I've had bottled beer get noticeably darker in color were cases of bottles being aged for multiple years.

 

When on a budget nothing beats 30pk. cans.
They fit better in the fridge and coolers.
Once poured into a glass, I don't think there is much of a difference.
I prefer drinking out of a bottle vs. a can, but a glass is always preferred but not always practical.

 

It’s a phenomenon I’m never experienced or I’ve ever heard about. Of course there’s oxygen both in cans or bottles but I wasn’t aware there was a thread on it, and about cans in particular.

 

This is interesting stuff, thanks. How does the production of aluminum compare to the production of glass bottles? I would imagine there are negative impacts on producing glass bottles, but, given what you described about the production of aluminum, perhaps it's not as bad for the environment?

 

No, there is absolutely no difference. They put the exact same beer in the bottles as they put in the cans.

General consensus seems to be that (given all other things equal) beer will age slower in cans but anything that is going to be cellared is better off in a bottle. That said, I've had more shitty/off cans than I have bottles.

 

It just comes up from time to time in various brewery threads or whatnot. It's an example of things going wrong.

Things can obviously get extremely complicated and situational (which is the opposite of how many "green" things are going to be portrayed to the consumer), but here's the way I always understood it: A good rule of thumb is that the manufacturing of cans is worse for the environment but cans are better with regards to transportation weight and recycling. Taking that into consideration, if someone's town is not actually recycling the aluminum, or if the consumer is buying local beer (with short transportation distances), then the environmental advantages of cans become minimized in the big picture. Oddly enough, the rise of popularity of cans for craft beer coincides with the rise of popularity of drinking local craft beer.

@tolar111

 

The Green thing is probably very regionalized, but both glass and aluminum are both recycled. My preference for cans is strictly from a consumer point of view. When I lived in PA we had 3 tubs, glass, cans, cardboard, then regular trash. When we moved to NC there was no recycling, everything was trash.

 

FWIW, if you have single-stream recycling there's a better chance of your cans being recycled when you do not crush them. Recycling centers use automated equipment to recognize and sort aluminum cans. Crushed cans are much more difficult for the equipment to recognize and separate, so the crushed can will often pass through to the landfill.

For those whose recycling is sorted at the curb, crush away.

https://www.iflscience.com/environm...ust-yet-you-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good/

 

Randy, that is good to know!

I am a lazy recycler in that I just toss the cans in the bin as is (i.e., no crushing). In this instance it is a good thing I am lazy.

Cheers!

 

I don't have any sort of scientific way of confirming this theory - but my GUESS is that a lot of these breweries with oxygen issues are utilizing slower canning/seaming lines which allow for more oxygen during the canning run. Bottling on the other hand - even the slowest lines are going to be capping on foam (CO2).

Don't get me started on breweries like Trillium that have sent out exploding cans and blamed their customers for 'not keeping cold'.

 

@Ranbot - that is indeed good to know. Unlike Jack, in my case I have the habit of crushing cans into as small of an object as humanly possible so that I’m not confronted with the knowledge that I drink too much beer when I see the image of my full recycling bin. I thought that was the true advantage of cans.