The Craft Brew industry continues to grow in popularity year on year, with an increasing range of Craft Breweries striving to supply the consumer with an ever-expanding range of top-quality, speciality beers. Whilst looking for a stylish, robust, versatile, & recyclable packaging option, more and more brewers are now supplying their beer in cans so in this blog we cover some very important things to consider if canning your beer is the way you’re thinking of going.
First Class Product
Craft Brewers undoubtable produce an exciting range of finely honed beers, aimed at those more discerning customers in search of a well presented, first class product. To ensure the beer reaches the consumer as the brewer intends, a rigorous process of Double Seam assessment is essential to ensure top quality beer not only goes into the can, but also maintains its taste and appearance throughout its shelf life.
Quality
Brewers are diligent in selecting the finest ingredients, purchasing high end packaging equipment and maintaining high standards of hygiene, all designed to produce a high-class beer. It is of equal importance to carry out regular Double Seam Quality Checks which we covered in our earlier blog “The Essential Seam Assessment Protocol For Craft Breweries”, ensuring the canning process is producing a safe Double Seam that will prevent leakage and the ingress of Oxygen into the can resulting in a substandard product reaching your consumer.
Production
A typical up and coming Craft Brewery packs their beer at around 50 cans per minute. That equates to around 24,000 cans per eight-hour day. If the recommended Double Seam Quality Checks are not being adhered to, the brewer could be releasing up to 5 million plus cans per year into the market without adequate knowledge or record of the quality of their packaging.
Shelf Life
Cans closed with a correctly formed Double Seam will maintain the integrity of the product, prevent leakage, preserve taste and extend shelf life. The converse is true of cans with a poorly formed Double Seam. While the can may appear to have been correctly closed, if the Double Seam is loose and/or poorly formed, it is likely to leak, reduce the quality of the product and possible contaminate nearby sound containers with spillage.
Product Recall, Loss of Business & Reputation
Should cans be found to be leaking either on the shelf in a shop or by a consumer, the potential consequences of a product recall are clear to see, not only in terms of the immediate cost, but as a negative effect on your business and the industry as a whole. Supermarkets are highly unlikely to do with business with suppliers that fail to display a transparent and clear Quality Control regime.
Effecting the Taste
Maintaining the desired Dissolved Oxygen levels in canned beer is very important. A small quantity of free Oxygen entering the can via a poorly formed Double Seam can not only spoil your beer and impair the flavour, it can also give it an unpleasant hazy appearance. While Pasteurising beer after canning will extend its shelf life, it will not prevent the beer from losing its flavour or suffering from poor appearance if the quality of the Double Seam allows leakage.
Non-Pasteurised beer packed in cans with substandard Double Seams, will not only be of poor quality, but could potentially cause customers to fall ill.
