What does the Cobra have in the bag?

Man Plans His Beer-Can Burial

Craft Beer In A Can? A Gutsy Move Is Paying Off

EnlargeCourtesy Oskar Blues

Oskar Blues Brewery reports sales are up more than 80 percent for the first half of this year.

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September 5, 2009

Putting good beer in a can used to be considered something close to blasphemy, but that's how several brave craft breweries across the country have recently started offering their beer. And despite the stigma, sales are booming — especially in Anchorage, Alaska.

"For decades, bad beer — cheap beer, I should say; no beer is bad — cheap beer has been in a can," says John Burket with a laugh.

Burket is an early believer in the potential of good canned beer. He's a beer lover and a local beverage distributor in Anchorage. Burket thought cans would be easier than bottles to take camping, fishing or hiking. They're lighter to ship. And he says the beer actually tastes better, too. Cans protect the ingredients from sunlight and oxygen, which degrade the flavor over time.

"The product is every bit as good in a can, possibly even better," he says. "Everybody who does try it is shocked — and loves it."

But Burket didn't have many converts in Anchorage until early this year, when the city stopped recycling glass. Since then, he's watched the market for good canned beer explode. In Anchorage, the cans often cost a dollar or two more a six-pack than similar beer in bottles. But Burket says even that doesn't seem to matter.

"Actually the biggest problem we have now is trying to get more and more in. We get some in, we run out, we get some in, we run out."

That supply issue is one Clay Brackley knows well. He's the head brewer at the Sleeping Lady Brewery in downtown Anchorage. A few years ago, the pub invested in a small hand-canning system, to package its Urban Wilderness pale ale. In the beginning, Brackley says, sales were bleak. "The first couple of years were very depressing, very tough," he says.

But then this summer rolled around.

"It's been insane this year. It's been over a thousand times what we did last year," he says. "They sell faster than we can make them."

Brackley recruited nine volunteers to help manage the extra work. On this day, though, it's just him and a beer intern, working in a dimly lit room in the brew pub's basement.

Brackley fills each can from a machine that looks a bit like a gas station coffee dispenser. Then he hands it to the intern, who seals on the top and stamps the cans together with a plastic six-pack ring.

It's a labor-intensive process. Brackley imagines a day when Sleeping Lady can upgrade to an automatic system. Several craft breweries have already made that leap. One of the largest, Big Sky Brewing in Montana, installed a line last spring that fills 60 cans a minute. They're selling twice as fast as the company expected.

Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado sells only canned beer.

"We knew it would be an obstacle," Oskar Blues' co-founder Marty Jones says. "The first stores we took our beer to said, 'We think that's funny and we appreciate your guts, but no craft beer lover will spend craft beer prices to buy beer in a can.' "

Oskar Blues now sells its cans in 25 states. And Jones reports sales are up more than 80 percent for the first half of this year. "We're growing like mad. We opened a new brewery last April to try to keep up with demand and we've already added some tanks to that brewery to try to keep up."

According to the national Brewers Association, 45 craft breweries across the country now can at least some beer. Back in Anchorage, Burket predicts good canned beer will take off first in outdoor-lifestyle states like California, Oregon, Montana and Alaska.

"I think that's where you'll see the cans really hit first, and then it will spread," he says.

But even can enthusiasts like Burket don't want beer lovers drinking their favorite brew straight from the can. He says no matter what package the beer comes in, it can't be properly enjoyed until it's poured into a glass.

Annie Feidt reports for the Alaska Public Radio Network.

SCOTLAND?

Sorry got this one a little late.  Mahar's Public House

Maybe Landman has a comment

YUP - WELCOME TO FRUGAL TUESDAY

THIS TUESDAY-OCTOBER 13

WE ARE OFFERING THE FOLLOWING TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH ALES AT SPECIAL PRICES

ALBA SCOTS PINE ALE

A TAWNEY BROWN STRONG ALE WITH SPRUCE AROMA, RICH MALT

TEXTURE, COMPLEX WOOD FLAVOR AND LINGERING FINISH.  7.5% ABV

NORMALLY $10.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $6.00

EBULUM ELDERBERRY BLACK ALE

A RICH BLACK ALE WITH FRUIT AROMA, A SILKY SOFT

TEXTURE, SOFT TOASTED FLAVOR AND GENTLE FINISH 6.5% ABV

NORMALLY $10.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $6.00

FRAOCH HEATHER ALE

A LIGHT AMBER ALE WITH FLORAL PEATY AROMA,

 FULL MALT CHARACTER, A SPICY HERBAL

FLAVOR AND DRY WINE FINISH  5% ABV

NORMALLY $10.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $6.00

GROZET GOOSEBERRY ALE

A PALE GOLDEN BEER WITH A REFRESHING FRUIT

 AROMA, CLEAN PALATE, FRUITY WHEAT

FLAVOR AND CRISP FINISH  5% ABV

NORMALLY 10.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $6.00

KELPIE SEAWEED ALE

RICH CHOCOLATE ALE WITH AN AROMA OF SEA BREEZE,

A DISTICTIVE ROAST FLAVOR AND A CRISP SALTY FINISH 4.4% ABV

NORMALLY $12.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $8.00

SKULLSPLITTER STRONG ALE

DARK RED-AMBER HUE, SMOKY MALT CHARACTER, FULL BODIED

PALATE WITH SHERRIED BURNT FLAVORS, LINGERING EARTH

HOP FLAVORS COME OUT IN THE FINISH  8.5%ABV

NORMALLY $10.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $6.00

AND FOR OUR DOMESTIC BEER LOVERS

PENICHUCK BAGPIPER'S SCOTCH ALE

DARK BREW WITH THICK FLUFFY HEAD, SWEET SMOKEY PEATY

AROMA, RICH SWEET SMOKINESS OVER A RICH TOFFEE BASE.  LIGHTLY

FRUITY WITH LIGHT MOLASSES SWEETNESS.  ONE LITER FLIP TOP BOTTLE 9%ABV

NORMALLY $20.00 - SPECIAL PRICE $14.00  

Glen Beck WTF

The Beer Club is  generally a non-partisan organization, united across bounds of race, creed, style and various disorientations in a love of beer and a quest for hops-related truth. So perhaps I should commerce this short diatribe by stating that my comments are my own opinion (and those of El Presidente, if I may speak for him), and not those of the membership as a whole, though I would hope that the vast majority would concur.

 

El Presidente and Counsel were engaged in a  nefarious, beer-related reconnoiter in the environs of Balston Spa (the other Spa City) NY, this past Monday, and felt the need for a quick refreshment. A Sierra Nevada sign in the window of the Sunset Cafe on Front Street was like a beacon from the beer gods, and we leapt to answer the call.

 

At first blush It looked like an ok place, nothing special, but all we wanted was a quick pint of Chico's finest. Instead, we were treated to the ugly mug of Glenn Beck leering down at us from the prominently displayed idiot box over the bar. His mouth drooled as he spouted his obscenities:  this was not to our taste.  Jerks like Beck and others of his ilk go against everything the Beer Club (in a bipartisan way) holds dear: truth, decency and the American Way. That sort of crap has no place in any decent bar.

 

So the Sunset Cafe lost 2 potential customers: stand up, my friends, in support of  a comfortable and welcoming drinking environment. Fight mediocrity and propaganda wherever it rears its ugly head.

 

Down in One

Counsel

Hunter Mountain

Boulder City NV pub alert Boulder City Brew Pub

Believe it, a nice little brew pub about 25 mi outside of Las Vegas on the way to the Hoover Dam. Could there be a better way to work of that Dam thirst? I think not. Jackie the waitress was from Albany....can you believe that and the beer makes you younger (see my picture). Pardon the photo's, my phone can only do so much. http://www.boulderdambrewing.com/

Check it out it is worth the detour.

Clarke