There is little doubt that cans are fast becoming a mainstay on the American craft beer landscape. Cans began to appear in the craft market in 2002, when Oskar Blues Brewing Co. (now the 44th largest craft brewery in the country) of Lyons, Colorado purchased a manual, two-headed canning system from Cask Brewing Systems of North America (in Calgary, Alberta, CA).

Today, there are more than fifty craft breweries in the United States who are already canning some or all of their beers. With more, like Baxter Brewing Co – a start-up craft brewery in central Maine – or West Coast powerhouse, Pyramid Brewing – who announced recently that they will begin canning their summer seasonal release, Haywire American-Style Hefeweizen, this year – popping up daily.

Advocates of the canned craft beer revolution, as it’s often called, claim that craft beer in cans has three main advantages over its bottled cohorts. First, cans are much better for the environment than glass bottles. Cans require less energy to create and less energy to ship than glass bottles, they are made from more than 70% recycled material and Americans are statistically twice as likely to recycle aluminum than they are glass. Secondly, cans are better for beer because they are completely light and oxygen free, keeping the beer in them fresher longer. And third, cans have much superior portability to glass. You can take a can everywhere you can’t take glass bottles (because they’re either too dangerous or too cumbersome), like the beach, the boat, the golf course; camping, hiking, fishing, snowboarding, etc.

While craft cans are not yet as easily recognized or found as their bottled counterparts, there is little denying their renaissance is here to stay and is yet another example of craft breweries pushing the boundaries of the generally accepted and the mainstream. Have you begun drinking craft cans yet?

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