According to The Washington Post, Baxter Brewing in Maine has joined a growing number of small craft-beer breweries that distribute their beers in cans rather than bottles. Nowadays, nearly 100 craft breweries sell at least one beer variety in metal, rather than a decade ago when no craft breweries were using cans.
Luke Livingston founder and president of Baxter Brewing, said the cans are good for the beer, the environment, and the consumers. People told him they would never stoop to drinking beer from a can, that bottles and draft were the best.
“My retort to those people is that draft beer comes out of a keg. And what’s a keg? A keg’s just a big can, it’s a big metal container.”
Cans improve quality because the beer isn’t tainted by light and is exposed to less oxygen than beer in a bottle. They’re also more conducive for outdoor trips such as camping, the beach, or on the golf course. Livingston also added that cans take less fuel to ship because they are lighter than bottles. Consumers are twice as likely to recycle cans as bottles.
Nearly 100 craft brew breweries in 39 states now sell at least one style in can, said Russ Phillips, of Northampton, Mass., who tracks the numbers on his website, CraftCans.com.
“The reputation that has been attributed to canned beers is slowly being knocked down,” Phillips said. “People are getting OK with the idea of better beer in a can.”
