In defense of canned beer

I got thinking about canned beer during last night’s Canned Beer Night at Spring Lounge. What do so many people have against canned beer? Last week, I won a 12-pack of Harpoon IPA cans at Professor Thom’s during their monthly Third Thursdays with Harpoon event. I had the choice between the cans of IPA or a variety pack of bottles that included Munich Dark, UFO White, and their Belgian Pale Ale. Everyone with me wondered why I chose cans over bottles, and I swiftly began my diatribe in support of canned beer.

There is nothing wrong with canned beer, as long as it’s good beer. In fact, signs point to it being better than bottled beer. For example, light is one of beer’s worst enemies, and even brown bottles let through a small amount of light. Canned beer doesn’t have that problem. Canned beer is lighter to ship, and more compact to ship more of it at once. That brings down shipping costs to the breweries, and with some hope, those savings will be passed on to the consumer. Its lower weight is better for the consumer, too; it’s much easier to carry around a 12-pack of cans on a hike than a 12-pack of bottles. And there are plenty of places where canned beer is allowed where bottled beer is not - parks, pools, beaches, rafting trips ban glass bottles (and most of them ban alcohol), but would turn a blind eye to a can*.

Another argument against canned beer is that it has a metallic taste. These are not the old cans that your dad used a churchkey to open when you were a kid. Cans today contain a coating that protects beverages from the aluminum. There may be trace amounts of the metal, but nothing that significantly impacts taste. If you’re uneasy about drinking out of a can, pour the beer into a glass or cup. That’s the way beer was meant to be consumed, anyway… the small opening on a can or bottle doesn’t allow the aroma of the beer to be released.

The only thing that keeps me from saying that canned beer is superior to bottled beer is that so few breweries can their beer, meaning that some of the best beer remains in bottles and only bottles. But the situation is improving: many breweries that can beer are making a name for themselves, like Colorado’s Ska Brewing, Minnesota’s Surly Brewing Co., and Oregon’s Caldera Brewing. Well-established players like New Belgium and Harpoon are canning some of their beer now, and Maine’s Baxter Brewing - set to open this year - will be canning their beer exclusively.

So I beg of you all, stop being afraid of the aluminum. What’s behind it might not be the swill you remember from college.

* I’m not encouraging illegal public drinking, obviously… although I’m sure it would be much more difficult for the NYPD to spot a guy drinking a can of 21st Amendment Back in Black on his Brooklyn stoop than a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.