Shout! Omaha

Cans – You Dig It?

Not so long ago, if I ever found myself considering a can of beer, my mind settled on an image of an ice cold can of Coors Light. Not because it would be my beer of choice, but more so because of the simple fact that my brain had been penetrated by the mind-control media waves that their marketing engine was emitting. The win goes to Coors. And in fairness, good job.

Today is a different day.

Today we look at the beer can. In a way, I may have picked one of the most boring topics around. We usually talk about the good stuff within it, not the delivery mechanism which simply holds the liquid in a tidy place for a while. But stick with me, and I’ll make aluminum kinda cool.

In preparation for this article, I’ve surrounded myself with beer cans of a different sort. Yes. This doesn’t suck. Oh, they’re still ice cold but they hold something much more precious: craft beer.

Craft beer in a can. Weird, huh? Well, it turns out that there happens to be change afoot. We’ll get to the advantages of beer in a can vs. beer in a bottle in a bit, but when we embrace the topic, beer in a can, we still largely find ourselves struggling with a few things.

First, for many of us, we’re still thinking “Dad’s beer,”a term largely referring to beer brands embraced by a generation of brand loyalists. The ONLY beer our fathers or grandfathers would ever drink was that one beer. The one that made all others seem evil. As if the struggle for freedom depended upon their zeal for their brand. In that light, the craft beer movement couldn’t be a more polar opposite. The enjoyment we find in trying new flavors or new brands, or that one brewery we’d only read about makes the thought of “Dad’s beer” seem downright foreign. But for whatever reason – the thought of a can takes us there.

Next up, taste, or the impression that taste is a factor, looms large. Indeed, the good ol’ beer can has passed through an era where the taste of the metal container actually found its way into our favorite thirst quencher. In fact, bottles have no such problem. Can’t recall the last time anyone ever asked me if the beer tasted a little glassy.

This is one of those things that if you think about it, you’ll get your “aha” moment. Think about those little tag lines that include phrases like “specially lined cans” and you’ll get it. Quite the effort put forth to stop tin from becoming an ingredient. In this zone, we really do find what I consider to be the largest problem with the cans of old. If you can’t make it taste good, what’s the point?

Third, we’re craft beer brewers, damn it. We just can’t run out and do things that might cast us in a factory light, and even though the beer Borg put their products into every container ever made, we still tend to associate the can with the image of the empire.

So why the heck would we even want to put craft beer in a can with so much stacked against it?

The answer is a little lengthy. When we realize that the aluminum can of today is taste-neutral, the rest is gravy.

While not exhaustive, here are a few items that fall into the “pro” category:

Light isn’t good for beer. You’d probably go all saucer-eyed if you knew how hard brewers work to keep light from shining on their product, but the effort is visible on the shelves. We’ve known for a long time that the Heineken-like skunky smell can find its way into a beer’s aroma from only a few scant moments in sunlight – and none of us really likes that.  Take a look the next time you walk down the beer section. Sam Adams has a cardboard six-pack container that nearly covers the entire bottle.  It’s not just for more marketing stuff. Light won’t pass through a can but light will pass, to varying degrees, through every bottle out there.

I wouldn’t recommend you try this, but dropping a full bottle and a full can on concrete is a tragedy with different chalk outlines. Both outcomes will likely get you wet but one could get you hurt – not great in most cases.

For brewers, a can negates a labeler and they kind of become their own marketing tool – there’s a lot of real estate for printing on there.  And we can feel good knowing that cans recycle with more side benefits than recycled glass.

It all comes together to be the right time for change.

Time to take off my anti-media-wave colander and reach for a can of the nation’s best.