Which is probably why Dale Katechis, founder of the small Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colo., decided he needed a sense of humor when he became a pioneer canner of microbrew three years ago and declared as his marketing slogan: "The canned-beer apocalypse is upon us." He's had to take a fair amount of flak from fellow craft brewers and overcome a good deal of resistance by some in the microbrew-consuming crowd. The idea, he says, is "to kick holes in the can's lowly image by shoving big, beefy beers into them."
It's hardly been an apocalypse for Oskar Blues. The brewery launched its canning operations in 2002 by filling two cans at a time with a small, $10,000 contraption it bought from Cask Brewing Systems Inc., a Calgary, Alberta, manufacturer of small-scale canning systems. (Indeed, Cask's inexpensive systems have been one catalyst for this microcanning revolution.) From a production of 760 barrels that year, Oskar Blues is on target to produce 4,500 barrels this year, making it one of the fastest-growing small breweries in the U.S. Its two canned offerings -- Dale's Pale Ale and Old Chub Scottish Ale -- have been racking up accolades in beer magazines and on beer-aficionado Web sites -- and attracting competitors.
In 2002, Oskar Blues had a sole rival, Big Sky Brewing Co., a Missoula, Mont., craft-beer maker that had begun putting its Moose Drool Brown Ale in an aluminum container shaped like a long-neck beer bottle. These days, there are about two dozen small U.S. brewers or brewpubs (bars that brew on site) and a half-dozen more breweries in Canada that are canning their offerings. That's admittedly still a small part of what's known as the craft-brew movement -- the 1,350 or so breweries and brewpubs that have rejuvenated the U.S. beer scene over the past two decades by reintroducing lots of once-lost beer styles and putting thousands of beers on the market. The canned-beer trend is strong enough that some in the beer-trade press think it could be a major engine in the growth of craft-brew sales during the next decade.
[Canned Beers]
Craft brewers such as Mr. Katechis are ascribing benefits of canning long touted by the likes of Anheuser-Busch, which first put Budweiser in a can in 1936. Cans are user-friendly. They stack and store well in refrigerators and coolers; they chill quickly and have the tactile benefit of feeling cold; they make nice billboards for their contents; and they are welcomed in many places where bottles often aren't -- around swimming pools, marinas and beaches, on boats and golf courses and aboard commercial airplanes. Indeed, one craft canner, Portland Brewery of Portland, Ore., has gotten its MacTarnahan's Amber ale on Alaska Airlines flights. Cans also block out all light, which along with heat is a major spoiler of beer.
Cans are also -- let's face it -- blue-collar and familiar, the vessel from which many of the nation's estimated 84 million beer drinkers took their first sip of brew. As such, they could provide an appealing portal through which the craft-beer makers -- whose sales grew to $3.5 billion last year but who still only have about 3.5% of the national beer market -- could convince Bud, Coors and Miller drinkers, who are 80% of the market, to try their more esoteric beer.
Scott Maitland, for one, is convinced the can has a bright microbrew future. Founder of Top-of-the-Hill Restaurant and Brewery in Chapel Hill, N.C., he launched two canned lines in May after being frustrated that he couldn't find craft beer on the golf course. When he sold 60 barrels (about 800 cases) in the first five weeks, a lot of them to a local supermarket chain, he knew he was on to something. "The consumers actually get it better than anyone in the craft-beer industry," says Mr. Maitland, who expects his canned output to grow to about 600 barrels of his Leaderboard Trophy Lager and Ram's Head India Pale Ale a year.