It’s no secret that Oskar Blues was on to something big when the brewery decided to release all their beer offerings in cans. CANS. If you’re my age (or thereabouts), you probably remember your parents’ friends rec-rooms or basements lined to death with all sorts of old beer cans. It was a 70s-era collectors bonanza. (Probably still is, no doubt.) With the rebirth of microbreweries in the late 80s, however, most craft beer went the route of the bottle and that lasted up until after the millennium for the most part. The beer can was considered a lesser vessel for craft beer and for a time it was cheaper to produce and recycle glass bottles than aluminum. Most of the cans you found were the usual BMC products.
That’s changed.
With cleaner aluminum production and better recycling initiatives, the beer can is back! And, not just back, rather back with a vengeance. A few other breweries in recent years started dabbling with certain beers in their portfolios in cans, i.e. Yuengling Lager, Brooklyn Lager, SKA ESB, SKA Modus Hoperandi, even Wittekerke from Belgium. But this week we shall now call “The Week Of The Can.” (Unofficial title, by the way.)
From beernews.org comes a deluge of announcements this week from multiple breweries adding cans. We love it! The can is not only lighter, it’s usually permitted in places where glass is not. So, if you find a beach where you can drink alcohol, take cans. Going on a picnic, take cans. Going tubing, take cans. Going camping, take cans. You get the picture. Not only do cans not break, they also protect your beer. There is no amount of sunlight that can get through aluminum and skunk your beer. Cheers to that! Fresh!
Breweries that made canned beer announcements just this week (we are sure there are more to follow): Grand Canyon, SunKing, 7 Seas, Tallgrass Brewing, SunTan Brewing, Harpoon Brewing, Triangle Brewing (Durham, NC!), Cisco, Starr Hill, and Saranac.
And just a little secret, beer spies tell us that Catawba Valley Brewing (Morganton, NC) will be releasing some offerings in cans soon enough, too.
So, gear up for summer kids and get yer can-can on!
