10
The beer packaging debate: Bottle vs. can
Beer in bottles and cans
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
Kai Ryssdal: Yesterday was -- for the uninitiated among you -- International IPA Day. India Pale Ale, it's beer. What I'm about to say is a matter of some debate, but good beer -- really good beer -- often comes from microbreweries. They typically cost more, but conventional wisdom holds microbrews are better than mass-produced fizzy yellow stuff in part because they usually come in bottles.
Conventional wisdom, however, isn't always right. LaToya Dennis reports from WUWM in Milwaukee.
LaToya Dennis: It's a Thursday night, and for college kids, the unofficial start of the weekend. Students from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, file into Gilbert's liquor store.
Architecture major Casey Carney heads straight for his beverage of choice.
Casey Carney: Flying Dog.
That would be Flying Dog, a microbrew out of Maryland. Right now, it only comes in glass bottles, and Carney says that's exactly the way he wants it.
Carney: Aluminum cans, that aluminum gets into the beer and it does make it taste different.
Russ Phillips runs the blog CraftCans.com. It tracks and reviews microbrews.
Russ Phillips: There is definitely a stigma attached to cans.
But a growing number of craft brewers is trying to change that perception. By Phillips' count, nearly 400 microbrews have turned to cans.
Phillips: When I first started the website 14 months ago, it seemed like about every month I'd hear of a brewery that was gonna can one of their beers. Now it's almost a daily occurrence from someone.
Jeff Hamilton is president of Sprecher Brewing Company in Milwaukee. A few months ago, the company started putting some of its Special Amber Beer in cans. He says the main reason for the switch was cost.
Jeff Hamilton: When it leaves here, it's considerably cheaper than the glass bottles. I know that our distributors have passed that on, as have the retailers.
At a nearby grocery store, a bottle of Special Amber was going for $1.75. But a can was more than 50 cents cheaper. And Hamilton says the advantages don't end there.
Hamilton: Cans are much better for the beer. Beer doesn't like light and beer doesn't like oxygen -- and the can completely keeps the beer in the dark and it's hermetically sealed so that no oxygen can get in.
Still, traditionalists like architecture student Casey Carney remain skeptical about beer in cans. But is there really a difference in taste? To find out I asked Carney to take a blind taste test with Sprecher Special Amber.
Dennis: All right. Why don't you try the glass on the left first?
Carney: OK, we'll see.
Dennis: All right, now you can try the other.
Carney: I have to say that's the aluminum.
Dennis: You think so?
Carney: I think so. Yes.
Dennis: Casey, you're wrong man.
Carney: I'm wrong? Oh no! Well I definitely can tell that there's a difference. But I guess, I guess I was wrong.
Now, Carney says, the next time he's in Gilbert's liquor store, he's going to give canned beer a second look.
In Milwaukee, I'm LaToya Dennis for Marketplace.
@KS2 Problema: There's been a lot of change in the beer industry over the past 17 years. We went from drinking out of bottles, to pouring bottles into glassware, and now to pouring cans into glassware. If you drink good beer you know this. Sorry to say, but you're out of date.
@Marla Voeltner: People who drink beer from a can are the same people who drink Bud Light, not people who drink microbrews. There's a difference in demographic. And if you're drinking a microbrew straight from the can or a bottle you're missing out on flavors that only come to light when poured into a proper glass (or like S Atkinson said, maybe you're camping).
As a craft beer fan who's enjoying the resurgence of cans (poured in a glass to optimize the flavor profile, of course) this was the highlight of my Friday evening commute. Here in Durham, NC, Triangle was the first craft brewery in the state to can, and it's fun to see this becoming a trend for other breweries in the area and beyond. While my personal preference is to keep a filled growler at home, I appreciate that we have choice - cans, bottles, refillable growlers. At least we can all agree that the variety within the thriving craft beer market is a great benefit to all of us beer fans, right?
For more on NC breweries: http://www.crossdrinker.com/2011/beer/north-carolina-craft-breweries-to-...
www.ncbeer.org
Hamilton is quite correct in his statement about the better qualities of canning versus bottling, that they are cheaper, prevent light stuck qualities, and the seal prevents oxygen uptake more effectively than the crown seal on bottles. One aspect that was not addressed is the belief that cans give an aluminum taste to the beer. This may have been true when they first came out, but nowadays the insides of the cans are typically lined with a thin waxy layer that prevents contact between the beer and the can and eliminating this effect. Some have also questioned the taste test (of course it wasn't scientific), but they did it in the proper manner by taking the beer our of the container and putting it into a glass. This is how every beer should be consumed and if you aren't then you are missing out on the sensory enjoyment of the beer, including the flavors, aromas, bubbles, and foam, that you paid for.
Seriosuly, one college student as the sample. Or was it 50 people and this was the only person who said cans are better. Additionally the beer wasn't even tasted from the can, but poured into a glass, understandably to disguise which was which, but how many people buy cans and pour into a glass. I would think most drink from the can and taste the tinny sensation.
I'm breaking my New Year's vow not to comment, but have to remark, Dale's Pale Ale from Oskar Blues is a delicious, hoppy beer only available in cans. This is the beer I take camping or tubing on a lazy river in the hot South. At home, I drink beer from the kegerator, the major kitchen appliance in our house! We decided it was more economically feasible and environmentally responsible to buy kegs.
Poor Casey! He doesn't know what he's talking about. Let me ruin one brands advertising right here. Get a can of Heineken and a bottle. Pour both in a glass. Taste. Yeah, that skunky smell from the bottled beer? That's "skunk' from light stuck hops, light that gets through green glass. And Heineken has trained you to like it. Casey- aim higher, at least for brown bottles.
I haven't consumed (real) beer or any other alcohol in over 17 years but I was serious enough about my beer aesthetics to weigh in on this. I've long been aware of the putative advantages of storing beer in cans -- but one blind taste test is hardly evidence of even individual preference. And this ignores one of the primary advantage of beer in bottles for drinkers of light, effervescent beers -- which are often damaged by decanting. American beer aficionadi tend to drink their beer *from the bottle.* And no one can convince such a person that the experience of drinking from a can is superior to that of drinking from a properly chilled bottle.
