In praise of canned beer
Yes, another beer story from the Wall Street Journal, this one asking the question, “Can the lowly beer can and high-style craft beer coexist?”
Writer Ken Wells quickly addresses the bias against packaging craft beers in cans:
By the early 1980s, the beer can became a symbol of everything that was wrong with brewing among a small, but growing, rank of brewers who were tired of what they called “national beer.” In their view, the mass-produced, middle-of-the-road, light and overcarbonated beer being made by the likes of Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors was as soulless as the cans it usually came in (a judgment unsurprisingly not shared by the Bud, Miller or Coors folks).
The story doesn’t really touch on the recent “beer brouhaha” between craft-beer-in-a-can pioneer Oskar Blues and Boston Beer Co., but includes input from small brewers across the country why (and in some cases why not) they’ve turned to packaging their beer in cans.
Of course, they included a blind tasting fo 16 beers, some from bottles and others from cans. Wells concludes, “One other thing became clear - on the taste front, cans weren’t much of an issue.” The ratings:
Stone IPA, 8.8, bottle; Scape Goat Pale Ale, 8.0, can; Old Chub Scottish Ale, 7.8, can; Brooklyn Lager, 7.3, can; Leaderboard Trophy Lager, 7.3, can; Dale’s Pale Ale, 6.0, can; Atlantic Amber, 5.3, can; Pilsner Urquell, 5.3, bottle; Elm City Lager, 5.0, can; Ithaca Pale Ale, 5.0, bottle; Ram’s Head IPA, 5.0, can; Saranac Pale Ale, 5.0, bottle; Redhook ESB Amber, 4.7, bottle; Kronenbourg 1664 lager, 4.3, bottle; Newcastle Brown Ale, 3.3, bottle; Archer’s Ale, 2.6, can.
