Craft beer in cans?

These crazy 80's designed canned beers from Maui have recently come into my possession and I've been excited all week about drinking them. The thought of decent beer in a can is a bit of a struggle for a lot of people, but after drinking some canned Oskar Blues beers earlier in the year I've been eagerly looking to get my hands on more.

Why cans? I hear you ask, well I suppose some of it is novelty factor, cans are traditionally what crap beer comes in, and as I've still had very little decent beer in can its still a real surprise to crack the top and smell a big hoppy beer or a roasted stout and even more of a surprise to pour something thick in body like a 10% imperial stout out. This is obviously a bit pathetic but my reaction is still 'wow its just like in a bottle', in fact the cans I've had so far have seemed fresher and sharper in flavour than bottles. Lets see what these two are like.

Maui Brewing Co. 'Big Swell IPA' 6.2%
I pull the ring-pull and there's a familiar crack then hiss, and then WOW the hop aroma pours out of the can toward my nose. Poured into my glass its a golden colour and hazy, not much filtration evident here. Its packed full of fruity tinned satsuma flavour and tropical, piny hops. Its has a great mouth feel which again is alien out of a can, its smooth and bitter, but not massively so. Its very drinkable and reminds me of a few other beers I've had in bottles but I can't pin it down... Vuur & Vlam?.. Southern Tier IPA maybe? Whatever, its another superb beer in a can, and all the way from Hawaii in this case.

Maui Brewing Co. 'CoCoNut Porter' 5.7%
This has a roasted, caramel sweet aroma and pours jet black with an off white head. I'm still slightly surprised that its coming out of a can. Its sweet at first but the taste then gives way to fruity chocolaty malt and toasty coconut. As you'd expect from a porter the mouth feel isn't too thick and there's a decent dry mouth cleaning carbonation to it. Moreish beer definitely.

If you think about it, canning beer makes a lot of sense compared to bottling, firstly there's much less risk of the cap seal failing and the beer oxidising, and there is no risk of the beer within being spoiled by daylight and becoming 'light struck'. They're easier to carry, easier to store and quicker to cool. I'm led to believe than aluminium is a much better recycling material than glass, so they're green too. They certainly take up a lot less space when empty (and crushed).

The principal problem with breweries canning beer is the public perception of cans, in that its previously been the packaging method of choice for industrial lager. Discerning beer people associate cans with crap beer which is often overly filtered and carbonated. I'm sure this was just the same in the US though before breweries such as 21st Amendment and Oskar Blues pioneered the canning of craft beers. It took the first taste of one beer to change my mind. There is of course another problem in that canning equipment is expensive and contract canning requires large minimum quantities making it unfeasible for many small UK craft brewers.

Personally I think its only a matter of time before we see canned craft beer in the UK and I think whoever does it first will have a great marketing angle to help the advertising of their beer. No prizes for who's been thinking about canning recently.

A massive thanks to Chris Mair, BrewDog's Scottish sales manager for getting me the beers!

Mark Dredge wrote a great blog on canned craft beer on his Pencil and Spoon blog earlier in the year here.