Cheers to National Beer Can Appreciation Day which will be celebrated on January 24! But why do we celebrate the humble can that day? Well, pour yourself a cold one and take a stroll down beer history lane with us!
Before prohibition, there were neighborhood breweries literally on every corner. Rochester’s namesake brewery was one of these local purveyors of fresh beer, located right up the street from our current location. Most beer lovers enjoyed draft or keg beer in these beer halls. And while bottled beer was available for home consumption, bottles had to be returned, they were expensive and heavy to transport, and they were breakable.
But there weren’t many choices when it came to packaging beer. Its chemical makeup reacted with metal and it had to be pressurized to retain its fizz. All that changed when the American Can Company found a solution with an experimental canning process, new design and materials. Working with Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company in New Jersey, cans began rolling off the line in 1933 and were commercially available on January 24, 1935.
Cans were inexpensive, lighter to ship, easier to stack, unbreakable and didn’t require a deposit or return. Canned beers popularity soared and innovations like the self-opening can followed in the 60s. Pull-tabs were replaced with today’s punch tab in the mid 1970s to address littering concerns, but the beer can has remained largely unchanged since then.
And while beer has been canned for close to a century now, Rochester only recently began larger scale canning with the addition of a Wild Goose Gosling 2.0 canner. Before that, we canned our beer by hand with a two-head filler, a time-consuming process that typically yielded one can every two minutes. With the new equipment, we can run 6-8 cans per minute. Current production also includes a nitrogen doser, which gives us the ability to can non-carbonated beverages like our cold brew coffee and lemonade.
Our beer cooler selection rotates often, so check it out the next time you visit and take home a mixed four-pack. And when you pop it open, take a moment to enjoy the piece of brewing history you hold in your hand.
**SPECIAL OFFER TO CELEBRATE: BUY 3, GET 1 FREE ON CANS TO GO THROUGH JANUARY 31, 2025**
Buy 3 cans of beer to go and get the 4th can (of equal or lesser value) FREE!
Cheers!