If you haven’t picked up a Crowler® yet, this cross between a can and a growler goes on sale at The Modern Brewery tasting room on Friday, April 15. Whoop it up on tax day with a 32-ounce-canned-solely-for-you-brew.
Brewmaster Ronnie Fink follows craft beer news regularly. He’d read that Oskar Blues Brewery worked with the Ball Corporation to successfully modify the sealer on an old-fashioned machine families used to can foods at home. The changed machine brought the aluminum cans—dubbed crowlers—to tap rooms at Oskar Blues in 2014. When friends brought Fink crowlers from the west coast breweries they’d visited, Fink was hooked.
Fast forward to this week and Modern is ready to throw down. “We just got our labels. The government requires a warning label on containers for alcohol. We’ve got a space for the beer’s name, the date you buy it and the ABV (alcohol by volume) of each.
“On Friday we’ll can Citrapolis and Arkham’s Finest as well as two newer beers, Miss Sally, a pilsner, and Odinson, an IPA we introduced this year,” brewmaster Ronnie Fink (right) says. “Eventually, all beers except the barrel-aged brews will be available, but for our first time out with the new machine, we’re limiting the selection for ease of operations.
So, why crowlers instead of growlers? According to Jason Dan the crowler man at Oskar Blues, aluminum cans filled straight from the tap can’t be beat. “At our tap rooms we say ‘Drink fresh and do not age,’ but depending on the person’s skills, beer canned from the tap should remain fresh three to four weeks,” Dan says.
Here’s a list of reasons why crowlers make sense:
- You don’t have to remember to bring your growler to the tap room for a refill.
- The cans are made from 68-percent recycled aluminum and when empty they are 100-percent recyclable.
- Before the fill, cans are labeled with the name, purchase date and ABV. The cans are then filled with CO2, which purges the can clean so there’s no contamination. Cans don’t allow light to affect the beer, which effectively eliminates skunked beers.
- Crowlers travel to the pool, the beach, on hikes and river floats, and any outdoor activity with ease. They’re lightweight, too.
- At 32-ounces, crowlers can be finished in a day. Negotiating a 64-ounce growler can be more of a challenge, especially for a single person.
It’s a case of everything old is new again, the uncomplicated cast aluminum machine that makes it happen is manufactured by Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry. A version of it has been continuous use for canning food since the end of World War I. The craft beer version was modified in collaboration with Jeremy Rudolph, packaging director at Oskar Blues, the foundry, and the innovation team at Ball Corporation. It went into service in 2014 at Oskar Blues tasting rooms.
The 32-ounce Crowler® is the trademarked property of Ball Corporation. Oskar Blues retains exclusive distribution rights for the machines and also supplies the crowlers, which they buy in large batches from Ball and repackage to sell to breweries.
The first operation in Missouri to use the crowler was Exit 6 Brewery in Cottleville. Four Hands will soon sell crowlers as well. “From order to delivery, our turn-around time is three to four weeks,” Dan says. To date, Oskar Blues has sold about 500 of the simple machines.
According to the Brewers Association, a national not-for-profit trade association of American craft beer brewers and home brewers 4201 craft breweries were operating nationally in December, 2015, more than any time since 1873, when the number reached 4131. That’s a lot of potential customers for the convenient crowlers.
To taste-test a crowler beer, stop by Exit 6 in Cottleville or show up at The Modern Brewery on or after Friday, April 15th during tasting room operations and watch them fill cans with an old-fashioned machine that’s found new purpose. Preserving good craft beers, one can at a time, straight from the tap.
For information on the Crowler® machine and cans, contact Jason Dan at Oskar Blues at 303-776-1914; ext 308.
Modern Brewery
5231 Manchester
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