When Craft Beers Goes Pfffs

The biggest trend in craft beer isn’t a style or a flavor. It’s the packaging: cans.

Just look at the shelves of the specialty beer retailers n Huntington and you will see an array of American craft brews in pop-top cans.

Beer snobs -I ‘m one - once turned up their noses at beer that wasn’t in a brown bottle. Cans meant cheap beer and, perhaps, a tinny taste.

Now, that’s changing. Indeed, rather quickly.  Brewers are debunking the myth that canned beer, around since 1934, is lousy.

Take a peek at the Craftcans.com Canned Beer Database. It lists 380 different craft beers from 134 different breweries. Of course there’s a long way to go, before the trend become widespread.  There are about 2,000 craft brewers nationwide.

Locally, the canned beer movement gained momentum following the recent debut of beers from Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Brewery, which previously had only been available on tap, said Chris Mennella, manager of SuperStar Beverage.  “It brought more people’s attention to it.”

At Shoreline Beverage, co-owner Stuart Haimes said, “We’re selling it like crazy. People like it.”

Consumers seem to like the cans.  One reason, said Haimes, it keeps the beer fresher than bottles, because light, which can spoil beer, can’t get in.

Mennella says consumers also appreciate the portability of cans.

They’re lightweight and travel friendly, especially for jaunts to the beach, pool, boating or camping. They’re also easier to dispose of or recycle when empty. “Its perfect for this time of year,” said Mennella. 

Most canned beers six-packs cost about the same as six-packs of bottles. At Superstar you can buy Brooklyn Lager in either packaging for $9.50, plus tax and deposit.

You also find canned craft beersat Big Z Beverage and Thrifty Beverage.

The advent of canned craft beer has caused several airlines to begin serving craft beers for the first time. Virgin America Airlines, for example lists on its web site that cross-country fliers can sip Gordon Biersch’s Märzen or Black Star Double-Hopped Golden Lager.  

They’re also at sports venues. At Citifield, venders hawking beer in the stands can sell you a can of Brooklyn Lager.  

Is canned beer any good? The new cans are coated internally with a food-grade polymer to keep the beer from actually touching the metal so there’s no metallic taste.

I’ve had no problems with the few I’ve sampled.

Like Sixpoint, a number of brewers are doing only draft and cans. Canning equipment takes up less space than a bottling line. Great South Bay Massive IPA and Robert Moses Pale Ale, now produced in Brooklyn for the Bay Shore-based Great South Bay Brewery, now under construction, will be available in cans once the brewery is completed.

Besides Sixpoints and Brooklyn, some brands you’ll find in cans include 21st Amendment, Avery, Anderson Valley, Butternuts, Oskar Blues, Saranac, Sly Fox and Bomb Lager. Selection, of course, will vary by store.