Like it in the can? Sierra Nevada to join the ranks of canning craft brews.

I love craft beer in cans, I can bring it on the boat and avoid a day of crap beer!

Best camping beer ever....

You might want to take a look at this article.

Right now 100 craft breweries are offering their wares canned.

Here is a link to the CraftCans.com database which shows canned craft beers offered by brewers in a state by state break down.

State Breakdown

Colorado leads with 41 beers offered by 14 different breweries. This does NOT count MillerCoors or Anheuser-Busch.

Colorado craft beer in Cans

Back in the 90's my class reviewed a case study as part of an Industrial engineering major. A particular huge brewery would determine which container was most appropriate for their product(s) based on the quality of the beer. The beer which was determined to be ideal was kegged, almost ideal went into bottles, and the least ideal went into cans. They chose this based on the likelihood of complaint or likelihood of return of the product. Needless to say, customers who purchased the product in cans were least likely to complain or attempt return. It was an eye-opener at the time, but I am not certain it is applicable to the much smaller microbrew industry.

That said, there are visible signs of mishandling beer which include taste, smell, and sight cues. With bottles, unintended sediment or an off-shade can indicate heat or light exposure. In particular, I use sight cues reliably when purchasing Anchor's Liberty Ale down here in sunny FL. For this particular product, I would likely never purchase it in a can. Bad beer seems more of a distributor problem in FL than anything else. Here light generally equates to heat exposure. Therefore bottles seem king for FL.

i have no problem with cans, i love to get Shiner Bock or Fat Tire in a can for when i float the river.

I always thought it was appealing to see a ipa or pale ale in a can.But the few i tried, Breckanridge for instance ipa i noticed a metallic taste only for the first few taste though. I have tried some local stuff that is mediocre but the can made it pretty decent.
There are some pros to cans though which i get.But man, you cant bottle your beer with those, i was getting cans and twist tops just because i have too many bottles as it is dormant.ha. It does seem to be a promising trend type seller, maybe envoking some non craft beer drinkers,i assume. People think " oh cans !cheaper than bottles.first thing.Craft beer ,cheaper?Ill buy it."

Are they going to still bottle (er I mean can) carbonate the beer? That would just be weird.

And I am somewhat disappointed, I have never liked beer from a can for some reason, its probably in my head, but I have compared a PBR from a can and from a bottle, and I thought the bottle was much better. Both were poured into a glass. Probably me just trying to be all fancy and hang with the wine snobs and think others are less than me.

But also anywhere that doesn't allow glass is also easily remedied by plastic bottles full of homebrew.

I'd guess its better for the environment, and I am sure at some point I will need cans for something, and then jump on board with it being a great idea as well.

MikeMayhem said:

call me when i can get a 6-pack ring of Pale Ale tall cans

Click to expand...

We have had some Red ale and pale ales in locally distributed in 16 oz cans around here. Only thing is they are 4 PACKS! What the..

The only imports I have had that didn't have freshness problems were in cans.

What is possibly my new favorite brewery, Tallgrass, uses cans.

Bring it on!

I think the metallic taste many people pick up is all in their heads. I remember hearing someone from 21st amendment commenting on how the new cans have a water based liner inside the can that negates all of the metallic taste issues.

I'm sure not ALL the breweries use the same cans but still, the pepsi challenge with the same beer from bottles and cans should be done. I bet most don't notice a thing. Surly, Caldera, 21st A..... all of it tastes great to me.

duckmanco said:

I think the metallic taste many people pick up is all in their heads.

Click to expand...

I agree, I think the bias against them are so strong that people are going to think they're picking up on stuff like that. When in reality cans are not the same cans from 20 years ago. I mean we open soup and other products in cans all the time and don't detect anything. It's funny to watch folks respond that way, it's really just an anti bmc elitist beersnob bias and nothing more. BMC comes in cans, therefore cans are bad.

Wakadaka said:

And I am somewhat disappointed, I have never liked beer from a can for some reason, its probably in my head, but I have compared a PBR from a can and from a bottle, and I thought the bottle was much better. Both were poured into a glass.

Click to expand...

Did you pour them into the glass yourself, or did you have someone else pour them and serve them to you blind?

Golddiggie said:

It might be partially in my head, but I still won't take it in the can.

Click to expand...

This quote is awesome with no context...

I just hope they don't just sell 6-packs. It is way too expensive....30-pack of SNPA for me!!!!