I tried a search but both words were considered too common.
I have always preferred to buy my beer in bottles even though I usually drink them from a glass. Recently the cities and counties in my area stopped recycling glass so I have started looking for more canned beers we like just to be more environmentally friendly. I was able to find Bells Oberon in 12 oz cans (used to only find them in 16oz) and Victory Golden Monkey in 12oz cans. The Oberon is great for drinking pool side and after cutting the grass. I am going to keep looking for cans now and hope others start canning rather than just bottling.
What do you prefer? Does recycling make a difference in your buying habits?
Prefer bottles, but cans get the beer into more venues. So…take the good with the bad.
Have no evidence to back it up, but one of my industry beer buddies told me some beers are brewed differently to compensate for the can. Not sure I like that, if true. My town still takes glass, so recycling does not enter the picture.
Can protects the beer better. No light exposure and less oxygen by volume than glass. Due to the delayed oxidation most of the better IPA’s and other aromatic beers are being canned. I prefer to buy cans but do drink them from glass.
I used to far prefer bottles but in the past few years I’ve come to prefer cans. They don’t shatter, take up less room, and protect from UV better. Like everyone else here I would rather drink from a glass.
I think recyclability is an excellent reason to help choose what you are drinking.
Strongly prefer cans. Freshness is paramount for hoppy brews which make up the majority of what I drink regularly. They are just a better vessel for this purpose.
I agree with the reasons listed above, another is I find can dating much more reliable. I can’t count the number of times I have found bottle dates to be illegible.
I doubt the can liner has any impact on the beer unless you are trying to age it but that is just an uneducated guess.
Hoppy brews in bottles with no visible date code are a non starter for me. I am much more likely to take the risk on non dated cans. Just a higher chance the beer will be correct.
Everything goes into a glass anyway so what the container looks like does not matter to me.
I know canning lines or mobile canning are not cheap for small breweries but I hope the process becomes more affordable as adoption of the format grows.
Cans have a bad wrap from the fizzy swill people have come to associate with them. I think that is changing.
We still use bottles. I worry about the BPA in the can liners and my daughter (our brewer) still claims that beer tastes slightly different (worse) in a can. We try to keep up on developments but don’t feel like it’s time to switch yet.
agreed. Much prefer canned beers. Unless you have a f*cked up canning line COUGH MODERN TIMES BATCH 1 BOOMING ROLLERS it’ll stay fresher and more aromatic. I’m loving the conversion to canned hoppy beers nowadays. Also easier to ship
I can’t control the lights in the store but the area in my cellar where I keep the beer has led lights so UV shouldn’t be a problem. Plus the lights aren’t on for very long.
I am not a hoppy person so freshness from that standpoint does not worry me. The Belgians and stouts I like can benefit from the age.
This is great. On one of my last trips to VT I bought a bunch of Heady Topper and Sip of Sunshine. But I’m trying to be really good about my Paleo diet and that means no beer. I’ve had about a dozen of each sitting in my fridge since President’s Day weekend and was concerned that they would go to waste.
That is a great video Andrew, thanks for posting it. When I think of aging beer I think of years, very interesting that he is thinking of it in months, at most probably a year. I know hoppy beers lose their signature flavor if aged too long but still funny to think about the timing vs what I would age a Belgian or stout.
No probs! Was interesting to see his take, given the obsession with cans - not just as the vessel for the beer, but also how you drink (vs. serving in a glass). He explicitly writes “best enjoyed from the can” on the side. The aging observations were just icing on the cake
Oskar Blues does all cans, and Westbrook out of Charleston does cans and is good beer. I prefer cans when I can find them, It sucks we can no longer recycle glass, is that a national thing or just South Carolina??
We still recycle glass in St. Louis, but when I lived in KC they did not. Apparently a lot of it comes down to whether you have a glass recycling facility close enough to make it economically sound. We have single stream recycling of everything except plastic bags in STL, which is great.
I have come to prefer cans as well for most beers. We don’t drink a lot of big hop IPAs, with something like Two Hearted being my preferred hop level (occasionally a bit more I guess) but cans are just so much easier. Fit in coolers better, no breakage, etc. Bottles are fine for some beers, stuff that will be aged, etc. Even getting some sours in can from time to time and I like that a lot. Not necessarily for top, top stuff, but for everyday sours it’s great.
Yup. Cans for most beers especially IPA’s & Pilsners. Saison/Farmhouse beers are probably better kept in bottles for aging, and for some reason I don’t see many wheat beers in cans yet, only a few domestics.
I am a bottle guy. Most of the beers I buy are for extended aging, plus there is no light in wine wine cellar where I age, so that is not an issue for me.
I am interested in hearing that beers meant to be drunk younger, such as American style IPAs may be better in cans. That has not occurred to me before. I have some Nugget Nectar in cans and bottles. I will do a side by side with the same batch and see if I notice a difference.
