Half Acre
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Following in the footsteps of boxed wine, which has only recently started to shake off the stigma that cheaper brands like Franzia have given it, canned beer is moving beyond Old Style and Bud Light. Craft brewers have recently started to embrace aluminum cans, which are lighter and cheaper to ship than glass bottles; unlike glass, they don’t let in light, which can make beer go skunky, and cans allow less oxygen uptake during packaging. And now that they’re lined, they don’t give the beer a metallic flavor. Minnesota’s Surly Brewing Company has been selling its beer in cans since it launched in 2006; other craft breweries that now offer cans include New Belgium, Oskar Blues, Big Sky, Ska, and Brooklyn. One of the most recent can converts is Gabriel Magliaro, owner of North Center’s Half Acre Beer Co., who recently decided to move away from bottles (except for 22-ounce bombers, which the company will continue to offer). Besides the aforementioned upsides, he says, “you can bring a can to the beach, the park, wherever you want to go; it’s light and there’s no broken glass. Really, on all levels it’s a positive thing.”
