As part of Bell’s Brewing’s ongoing expansion, the brewery announced they are installing a canning line at the Comstock facility.
A 500 can per minute canning line will be active by Spring, 2012. That’s almost double the speed of the bottling line at 260 bottles a minute. No decision has been finalized which Bell’s beers would be headed to cans. <MLive>
Seems that cans are becoming more and more popular, Avery’s, Breckenridge, and several others are going to cans. I don’t like it. Cans take away a lot of the beer’s taste, for example with 21st Amendment, all of their beers are really good on draft but in cans they taste horrid, very metallic with zero flavor. I actually poured out a six pack of Fireside Chat it was so bad. I hope this doesn’t become the norm as a lot of good beers will suffer going into cans.
I agree with the 21st ammendment complaint above… i had back in black on draft LOVED it… had it in a can… was very metallic… even emailed the brewery about it to tell them. it was not good!
I’ve heard several other people say the same thing about 21st’s beers. Sad really. I can say though I’ve had Bell’s Oberon and Best Brown in the minikegs and they’ve tasted fine, but the difference between steel and aluminum may make all the difference in taste.
Modern cans are all lined with food grade material so there should be no difference in taste if you are pouring it into a glass (theoretically). I would guess it’s mostly a psychological thing as I’ve had the same reaction to beers from a can.
Now if you’re drinking it straight from the can I can see where you might get some taste from the lip. However I can’t say I’ve really had a quality brew from a can – yet. Most of the beers I associate with cans tend to have metallic or off tastes regardless of what they’re served in.
I’ll enjoy finally being able to take some two-hearted to the beach, golfing, fishing, etc… now that it’ll be in cans.