For decades, there was a clear divide between canned and bottled beer. Canned beer was cheap, meant for mass production and consumption on camp-outs out of coolers. Bottled beer was considered classier and higher quality, something to savour while sitting on your favourite bar stool. But advances in technology and the rise of craft breweries have broken this divide. Expensive IPA’s from independent breweries are often exclusively canned, while more and more venues ban bottles as an unsafe option. The time has come to re-examine the debate, and determine once and for all which of these contenders is the ideal container.
Taste
For years, you’d often hear complaints that tins took their toll on the taste of a brew. According to a few flavour experts, bottled beer tasted fine while canned beer came out tasting like liquid aluminium. Now, most modern cans put a thin layer of polymer inside to keep the aluminium from encroaching on the flavour.
At the same time, an argument can be made against glass bottles for allowing an unhealthy amount of sunlight inside. Any beer snob will tell you that sun exposure can skunk your bevvie, which isn’t helped by unreliable bottle-caps allowing oxygen to upset the balance of your brew. Of course, its unusual for bottles or cans to be exposed to sunlight anyway. Additionally, the same properties which allow bottled beer to skunk also enable it to age and unlock its ideal flavour. High alcohol beers, such as our superb stout A Feast of Stevens, can only be bottled to bring out their best results with time.
We’ll say that with the exception of ageing, when it comes to taste there’s no good reason to choose bottles over cans.
Storage
Even the most determined defender of bottles would say that there’s nothing advantageous in their design. Impossible to stack and awkward to store, they’re also slightly heavier than cans. Cans, on the other hand, were designed to be simple in stacking, storing and shipping. They also come in at about half the weight of bottles, and don’t have the potential to shatter if they slip out of your hand.
When it comes to storage, cans are clearly superior.
Recycling
While it might seem like cans would have this one in the can (or the recycling bin), this issue is not so clear-cut. Yes, many aluminium cans are recycled. In fact, current figures sit at about seventy percent! However, the mining of bauxite for the original aluminium is much more harmful than the acquisition of silica to make glass. At the same time, the smaller size of cans mean more can be shipped at once, emitting less greenhouse gases overall.
As their recycling is becoming more common, such as in our range of tinnies from Pirate Life, we have to award the environmental awareness to cans.
Aesthetics
As they were always the cheaper option, cans rarely considered using interesting artwork to advertise themselves. As more and more quality beers have become canned, we’ve seen a wonderful upswing in interesting, original artwork taking advantage of their 360 degree design. This is not to say that beer labels have suffered, nor have bottles lost their unique advantages of interesting cap and bottle designs (as with our beautiful bottles of Viru Premium).
As with any art, beer packaging’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For this reason, we’re calling it a draw on the design front.
Temperature
When it comes to keeping beer cold, there is no clear winner between bottles and cans. Yes, cans are much thinner than bottles, meaning they cool down quicker. However, the thickness of bottles keeps beer colder for longer. If you’re looking for a quick drink after a hot day, go for a can. If you’re after a slow sipping experience, your best bet is a bottle.
We’re going to call a draw when it comes to this cold war.
Traditional Brewing Techniques
For brewers who bottle-ferment their beer in the traditional Belgian style, the process cannot be copied in cans. The same can be said for brewers whose recipes call for extra CO2, which can cause cans to burst! Of course, there are few beers which require more CO2 than current cans can stand. All the same, this is one area where cans need to catch up.
With three draws, two points for cans and only one unique point, we’re calling cans the clear winner here!
Cans vs Bottle is an interesting topic and it’s very refreshing to learn the different features between cans and bottles.