Let me be the first person to say, I don’t understand why more people drink boxed wine? I’m not talking about the cheap Franzia wine from college. I’m talking about the nice boxed wine from Trader Joes. It’s cheaper, last longer, more sustainable and when it’s in a glass, no one knows it came from a box.
Sometimes I wonder if the same perception has happened to beer? When people see a can of beer do they immediately think of Bud or Coors?
Don’t get me wrong, I love bottled beer, as a home brewer, I get to enjoy a great craft beer AND get free bottles for my next batch of homebrew. That being said, I’ve fallen in love with canned beer for the same reasons I’ve fallen in love with boxed wine. When it comes to camping, back packing, and rafting. It’s way easier to pack out crumpled cans than glass bottles. You don’t have to worry about broken glass. Plus, there seem to be more backyard beer games played with beer cans than beer bottles. Thanks Steve for introducing me to my new favorite backyard game, Polish Horseshoes. Aluminum is a naturally occurring substance found in bauxite ore. It is one of the most widely used metals in the world due to its abundance, durability, lightweight and conductivity. Not to mention canned beer last longer, because of the opaque cans, where glass bottles (even brown ones) let in some light, which is bad for beer. Shipping is easier, no broken bottles and less CO2 emissions since aluminum is lighter than glass. As Marty Jones of Oskar Blue Brewing says, “About 35% of the weight of a bottle of beer is in the bottle. Beer is shipped by weight, so we get 35% more beer on truck.”
My favorite canned beer! Abominable from HUB.
Other noteworthy reasons to drink canned beer:
- Aluminum is 100% recyclable and can be recycled almost indefinitely without loss of quality or durability. (Hello, closed-loop system!)
- Aluminum beverage cans can be recycled, repurposed, and back in the store in as little as two months. (Just think, that Bud Light you are drinking now could be a new can of craft beer in two months!)
- The average recycling rate of aluminum cans is 68%, the highest rate of recycling of any resource. (Everyone is doing it, you should be too, and it’s easy!)
- The use of recycled aluminum in manufacturing utilized 95% less energy than creating aluminum from raw materials. (So keep it up!) Thanks Chasing Green for the facts.
Also, did you know that some cans are lined with a water-based epoxy so aluminum and beer never meet? This actually improves the design by eliminating the “headspace”, the little pocket of air that you see at the top of the bottle. Oxygen, if you didn’t know, is also bad for beer. This epoxy also helps fight the myth that canned beer has a metallic taste. Two notable breweries in Oregon that are literally crushing it when it comes to caned beer are: Hopworks Urban Brewery and Fort George Brewery.
What are your perceptions of canned beer? What is your favorite canned beer?
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