Beer Radar for April 2013 edition of WBM<\/p>\n
By John Kr\u00fcger<\/p>\n
Australia in a Can<\/p>\n
After a huge day of judging the 2012 Royal Adelaide Beer Awards, we all decided that a few jugs of our favourite beers of the day would be in order. By the time we left to head out to the pub for dinner, I felt like a balloon sloshing about, ready to burst at any moment. We arrived at the nearby Goodie Park Hotel and fellow judge Neal Cameron didn\u2019t bat an eyelid when a few pints of more beer were ordered. Myself and another judge had to wimp out by coasting on small glasses of d\u2019Arenberg white for a while. Neal was our 2012 guest interstate judge from the Australian Brewery<\/strong> in Sydney. He\u2019s an impressive judge and knows beer and cider back to front. I\u2019ll never forget him swivelling to face a few of us with a pint of beer in hand and asking, \u201cWhat do you think about beer in cans?\u201d It took me a moment to respond, thinking about it. \u201cWe\u2019re thinking of putting in a canning line.\u201d He added.<\/p>\n It was like a repeat of the same question from another brewer within a few weeks beforehand. There\u2019s a stigma about the quality of beer in cans in the USA but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything like that here in Australia. After all, we took to srewcaps on wines like ducks to water after it was explained why they\u2019re a superior closure.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t mind at all.\u201d I responded, and agreed with the other judges explaining the many virtues of canned beer over bottled. While most agreed that the experience of beer in a glass is best, the storage and distribution of beer in cans is smart, no matter which way you look at it. There\u2019s no chance of light strike, which is much more of a serious issue for beer lovers than they\u2019ll ever realise. The weight per container is bugger all compared to bottles at around 210g of glass versus 14g for a can. An aluminium can uses more energy to be produced but 92% less materials are used. They also use about 40% less volume to stack into a case, so the eco-benefits are pretty huge. Then there\u2019s the whole issue of glass at events. If you\u2019re a brewery and keen on getting your beer into big festivals, not having beer in cans means you\u2019re pushing shit uphill all the way. If you\u2019ve ever been in a country pub in the middle of nowhere, you\u2019ll soon realise that the general attitude is \u201clugging kegs around and cleaning lines is for mugs\u201d, and almost all beers are available only in cans.<\/p>\n So about 8 months after that chat with Neal, he\u2019s sent me a few of his new babies. Pilsner, Pale Ale, Steam Ale and Cider all in boutique Eurosleek cans. They\u2019re tall thin cans. The same ones that Coopers are using for their Clear, so they\u2019re certainly not mistaken for the ubiquitous VB or XXXX cans. So what about the beer? The Australian Brewery Pale Ale is fashioned on the new Pacific Ale style, which is becoming very popular at the moment. It\u2019s easy drinking, as is the Steam Ale, but with a beautiful grassy spicy hit of Galaxy hops. It\u2019s quite moreish. The cider\u2019s bloody good too, but the standout for me is the Pilsner. It\u2019s so clean, refreshing and, well, just about perfect in every way.<\/p>\n Neal explains his new love of cans, \u201cI\u2019m getting to the point where I think the question really should be, \u2018why glass bottles\u2019?\u00a0 I can think of no advantage of the format with regard to quality of beer, cost of production, cost of capital, cost of transport, recyclability, safety, accessibility, space, and weight.\u00a0 The list just goes on and on.\u00a0 Most importantly, as a packaging veteran, I have recently drunk the first run of steam ale we did which was 5 months ago.\u00a0 The cans have not been refrigerated and they are still amazingly fresh \u2013 much more than a corresponding bottled product would be.\u00a0 The biggest difference is almost zero oxygen pick-up, and that is terribly hard to get with a bottling line.\u00a0 Every time I open the fridge and see the product I just love the way it looks \u2013 one of the first times I\u2019ve fallen in love with something a marketing department has come up with.\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The Australian Brewery beers are available at varied outlets including Dan Murphy\u2019s and from the Australian Hotel and Brewery, 350 Annangrove Rd, Rouse Hill, NSW. http:\/\/www.australianhotelandbrewery.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beer Radar for April 2013 edition of WBM By John Kr\u00fcger Australia in a Can After a huge day of judging the 2012 Royal Adelaide Beer Awards, we all decided that a few jugs of our favourite beers of the day would be in order. By the time we left to head out to the … Continue reading Australia in a Can<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft-beer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}