This is a fun video that Ray Daniels tweeted about this morning. BJCP instructor Peter Campagna made a video showing bottles and cans representing each of the “76 Beer styles from the BJCP guide.”
Friday Fun: Duff Can Animation
This morning I stumbled on this simple video, which looks like it was an exercise in computer animation, showing a can of Duff beer dropping to the ground and rolling. Enjoy.
Never Say Never: Samuel Adams Boston Lager Cans
Lots of big announcements in the beer world this week, as the Boson Beer Co. made public today their plan to release Samuel Adams Boston Lager in cans this summer. I can’t seem to find the original source this morning, but I clearly recall several years ago that Boston Beer founder Jim Koch was quoted at one time that Samuel Adams beer would never be in cans, but over time his stance began to soften, and by 2010 he was warming to the idea. At that time, he told Beer Business Daily that he did believe that someday Samuel Adams would be in cans, and was still looking at the BPA in liners as a not-quite-resolved-yet issue. Once upon a time, their 2005 “Beer Bill of Rights” included as Article VI: “Beer shall be offered in bottles, not cans, so that no brew is jeopardized with the taste of metal.”
That issue has largely been solved with the use of an organic polymer, but Boston Beer has apparently taken it one step farther, designing their own type of can for the project, “the Sam Can.”
From the press release:
Samuel Adams announced today that for the first time it plans to offer Samuel Adams Boston Lager in a can – but not just any can. The new can design — the result of two years of ergonomic and sensory research and testing — aims to provide a drinking experience that is closer to the taste and comfort of drinking beer from a glass. The “Sam Can,” as the brewers call it, will hit shelves in early summer 2013, just in time for drinking occasions that call for the convenience of a can such as sporting events, boating or the beach.
“The debate over bottles vs. cans has been a sticking point for brewers in the craft beer community for years,” says Jim Koch, founder and brewer of Samuel Adams. “In the past, I had my doubts about putting Sam Adams in a can because I wasn’t convinced that Boston Lager would taste as good as it does from a bottle. But cans have changed. And I believe we’ve designed a can that provides a slight but noticeably better drinking experience than the standard beer can.”
Koch and the other brewers at Samuel Adams first worked with can manufacturer Ball Corporation to understand can design, technology, and how to package premium beer in cans. The brewers then worked with a design team at IDEO, a recognized global design firm, and finally enlisted the help of sensory expert, Roy Desrochers of GEI Consultants. Desrochers, a recognized beer flavor expert for the Master Brewer’s Association of the Americas (MBAA), has provided counsel to the brewing industry for almost three decades. With Desrochers’ help, Koch studied every aspect of the new can, from how it could potentially impact the flavor of Samuel Adam’s flagship Boston Lager to the ergonomics of how the beer flows from the can and hits the taste receptors on a drinker’s tongue.
“I worked with Jim and the other brewers at Sam Adams on an ergonomic and flavor study to understand the benefits of the new can,” says Desrochers. “The flared lip and wider top of the new Sam Can work in concert to deliver the beer in a way that makes the flavor closer to drinking out of a glass. Although subtle, this can delivers a more pronounced, more balanced flavor experience – something that was very important to the brewers. The extended lip of the can also creates a smoother, more comfortable overall drinking experience.”
The difference in drinking out of the new can as compared to a standard can will be modest, but drinkers should notice enhanced flavors and a more comfortable experience. The position of the can opening and wider lid, naturally opens up the mouth allowing for more air flow and positions the drinker’s nose closer to the hop aromas of the beer. A little known fact is that most of what we think we taste is actually what we smell – that’s why it’s hard to taste food with a stuffed up nose. Drinkers also noticed that the extended, curved lip of the can delivered the beer to the front of the palate to maximize the early enjoyment of the malt sweetness.
Koch’s end goal in developing a new can is to provide drinkers with the best possible Boston Lager drinking experience when they prefer the convenience of a can, like on the golf course or at the beach, without compromising the taste of his first and favorite beer, Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Celebrating the flavors and ingredients in Boston Lager is what also led to the development of the Samuel Adams Boston Lager Pint Glass in 2007, also the result of a lengthy research project to enhance the beer drinking experience.
“The new Sam Can required a million dollar investment in special equipment tooling along with time, research and testing. This new can will also cost more than the standard can to produce. It may seem a little crazy to make that kind of investment, but we felt the slight improvement in the drinking experience was worth the expense. We made decisions based on the beer, not on the bottom line,” Koch explains. “We’ve done tastings here at the brewery, with Sam Adams drinkers and our experts, “and now, we’re proud to launch Samuel Adams Boston Lager in cans. We have a vessel that gives our drinkers the best tasting Samuel Adams in a can.”
Among the many advantages of cans is that drinkers prefer cans in certain circumstances where bottles are often not allowed or convenient, such as beaches, parks, pools, sporting events, boats and airplanes. Samuel Adams Boston Lager in cans will be available in 12-packs nationwide beginning early summer, for a suggested retail price of $14.99-17.99 (price varies by market).
You can also read additional information about what went in to the design of the can at BostInno and also at Boston.com’s Sam Adams: Now (finally) in a can.
Of course, the fact that many other regional breweries have put their beer in cans, too — Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Brooklyn Brewery, RedHook, etc. — has to have been a factor, too. Still, for can fans this is great news. Cans have outsold beer in bottles for the big brewers for decades, and at least as long as 1980, if not longer, so it only makes sense that as craft brewers grow larger that such a popular package would become part of their portfolios, as well, as they continue to take a bigger and bigger piece of the nationwide beer pie.
Respect The Cans
Today’s infographic comes from SlyFox Brewing in Pennsylvania. The poster, Respect the Cans, spells out the advantages of cans over bottles.
Click here to see the chart full size.
Beer Can Advent Calendar
This looks like a fun project for the DIY-minded beer lover, with a tip of the hat to KegWorks. The Do-It-Yourself website Instructables has step-by-step instructions on how to make your own Beer Advent Calendar with cans of beer instead of those little chocolates that most of them have behind each daily door. We also get a Lego Advent Calendar every year for the kids, but a beer Advent Calendar sounds even better. Check it out. Be sure to read the comments, too, where suggestions on how to do the same thing with beer bottles can be found.
Naked Beer Cans
This is an interesting design, generic beer cans, made to look as if they were essentially clear and showing the contents inside, albeit in an idealized way. They were created by Timur Salikhov, a designer from St. Petersburg, Russia.
He starts with the premise “Why hide what good beer looks like?”
And then he designed the cans to appear as if they were a freshly poured glass of beer. It’s fun concept and apparently he’d like to sell the idea to a brewery. I think the only unfortunate aspect of his design is that without additional branding on the package, it may look too generic. BUt it sure looks like a beer I’d like to open.
Three Decades Of Beer Containers
Here’s an interesting little snapshot of the various containers beer comes in over the last thirty years from the Container Recycling Institute. In Container Types Used For Beer in the U.S., 1981-2010 , they detail how beer in bottles have increased steadily 15% over that time and now make up almost 40% of how beer is sold. At the same time, draft beer has receded. Cans are still on top, but dipped significantly beginning in the 1990s, but in recent years have started to rebound.
Red Stripe Sound Sculpture
This is kind of fun, and certainly an interesting way to reuse discarded beer cans. Red Stripe is apparently launching a marketing campaign under the banner “Make with a Red Stripe” and this is the first one. Below is the description from YouTube and the video itself is below here. And a hat tip to Adam for the link.
Make Something from Nothing, the first of a series of cultural projects called ‘Make with a Red Stripe’, features a unique sound sculpture created by sound artist Yuri Suzuki, in collaboration with DJ Al Fingers, singer/songwriter Gappy Ranks and designer Matthew Kneebone.
The 2.5 metre high, fully functioning sound sculpture is made using thousands of recycled Red Stripe beer cans partly collected at this year’s Notting Hill carnival. The project celebrates the DIY culture of the brand’s Jamaican roots, with Reggae, Dub and Jamaican music influences as well.
Make Something From Nothing debuts on 16th November with an exclusive launch party at Village Underground. Visit Facebook for more information.
Beer Can Dads 2012
I posted these last year a couple of weeks before Father’s Day, but figured today was a good day to take another look at them. Last year, the good folks at Every Guyed designed eight beer can dads.
Here was the idea:
To celebrate Father’s Day, EveryGuyed and Moxy Creative House have teamed up once again to deliver the second installment of the ‘Cheers!’. This time we had creative director Glenn Michael raise a glass — and his brush — to 8 iconic animated dads, re-envisioning them as beer cans.
When you were a kid, Father’s Day was a pretty boring affair. Now you’re of age, and all of a sudden you have the chance to do something with your dad that he’ll actually enjoy: share a cold one together.
See if you can guess all of the cartoon dads. You can see all eight of them in the slideshow above. The answers can found at the bottom of last year’s post.
Now I want my own dad can. What would yours look like?
Beer In Ads #609: One Can Left In The Refrigerator
Thursday’s ad is for the manufacturer Continental Can Company, from 1959, extolling the virtue of their can for beer. Showing an illustration of four seating men standing around an open refrigerator with a can of generic Light Beer in it, the company promises that “Continental has the right beer package for you!”
