Beer: Can v. Bottle

[Shoeman]

I pride myself on knowing a thing or two about beer (but maybe just drinking alot doesn't count). Recently, a friend who I'm trying to turn into an enthusiast, ask whether she should buy beer in cans or bottles if given the choice. Instinctively, I recommended by the bottle because most of the better beer I drink only come that way. I assume that glass is non-reactive and presume it makes a better container. I'm am interested in which is better and why?

[Michael Messier]

I think you hit already hit it on the head. Except for some japanese beer, and the english/irish ones in the nitrogen cans-which are really in a class of their own in terms of duplicating the fine carbonation and creamy head of nitrogen driven draft beer-there aren't many beers worth drinking that come in a can. Nonetheless, I doubt one could detect much of a difference between cans and bottles, unless the beer was extremely old, in which case it would be too oxidized, etc, for it to really matter.

[Jim Dorsch]

I wonder if a can might actually be better, since it protects beer from light. For that matter, isn't a keg basically a big can?

[Josh Mittleman]

Yes, but that word "big" is important. What made canned beer tasty nasty in the past was metal ions leeching into the beer. A bigger can has a higher ratio of volume to surface, so there's less effect on the taste.

However, I think it probably it true that modern packaging technology has all but eliminated the problem, as long as the beer is stored properly. You wouldn't want to age beer in cans, but if you dirnk it within a few months, you probably won't notice the difference.

And those pub-draft cans used by Guinness et. al. really are marvelous.

[Jim Dorsch]

A keg, I believe, is stainless steel. Cans today are aluminum, and are likely coated.

Yes, the nitrocans are truly amazing. Guinness from a can is remarkably similar to draft.

[plasticbob69]

Kegs are made out of aluminum. If they were stainless steel you wouldn't be able to lift them and they certainly wouldn't take the abuse those kegs are put through during distribution.

Whatever the container you get the product from, drink your beer in a freshly washed glass. You need to smell it to appreciate it.

Cheers!

[Jim Dorsch]

And the freshly washed glass had better not be washed with detergent.

[Deven Black]

Beer kegs are NOW made out of aluminum, but it has not always been so. Obviously in early days they were wooden, but as late as the mid 1980's severalo brands were still using steel kegs. I recall having to haul 12.8 gallon kegs of John Courage Ale that weighed more than 15o lbs. For comparison, a13.2 gallon keg of beer in an aluminum kegs weighs about 110 lbs.

[Griller141]

Two peripheral comments:
1. A local (Los Angeles) microbrewery recently had an informal tasting of several beers, both limited and general distribution, that came in both cans and bottles. When paired beers were blindly poured into glasses (by an uninvolved party), no one could even begin to separate the bottled from the canned, and very few could discern any difference at all.
2. Coca Cola afficianados (I am not one) consistently claim that bottled Coke is far superior to canned product. This is mentioned several times in the definitive history of Coke, "For God, Country, and Coca Cola", by Mark Perdergrast, Basic Books, 3/2000. There is no objective testing of this claimed difference.

[Jim Dorsch]

I would be very surprised if there was a discernible difference between canned and bottled product. The large brewers who make these beers are in the business of consistency, and they spend a lot of money on packages and systems to put beer in those packages. However, the can/bottle debate is a staple of beer culture, and would be sorely missed if brewers suddenly went to one package exclusively.

[Griller141]

Well spoken. I agree entirely.

[billm]

A somewhat tangential question:

I strongly prefer to drink beer out of a bottle. If given a can, I will usually ask for a glass. My father, on the other hand, has the exact opposite preference and will not drink beer straight out of a bottle.

In a discussion with some friends, we found the same seemingly generational gap on this issue (we are all around 30 and our parents are around 60).

Any thoughts on why this might be? We posited that it might be the relative novelty of the can while the older generation were in their formative years, but I really have no idea when the can started to be used for beer packaging.

[gary]

Two thoughts that are connected - i believe that in the days before recycling, returnable beer bottles were actually cleaned and reused. Combine that with prying the (non twist-off)caps off with church keys and there were a lot of bottles with sharp edged lips.

[Jim Dorsch]

If you want to taste the beer, you have to pour it into a glass. Taste is perceived through the nose, and it's exceedingly difficult to smell through that tiny opening at the top of the bottle.

Do you drink wine? If so, do you drink it from a glass or straight from the bottle?

[Griller141]

That's a pretty good point; smell is probably more important than "taste" in sensing food and drink. The question remains, though, does glass vs metal storage make a difference assuming the use of a glass for drinking. Then again, I never heard of wine packaged in metal.