In Beer In The News, Beer Me BC excerpts news from sources around the world of craft beer. Note that the opinions expressed within are those of the original source and not Beer Me BC. Moody Ales Releases the Crowler – A Growler Sized 946ml Beer Can December 17, 2014

Moody Ales Brings the Crowler® to Canada

Port Moody, BC, Canada – December 16th – 2014.

Moody Ales, a craft microbrewery in Port Moody, BC, will be the first brewery in Canada to package beer in a Crowler®. A Crowler® is a 946 mL can filled with fresh craft beer and sold within hours of packaging. The Crowler® will supplement Moody Ales’ other forms of packaged product–bottles and growlers–and serves a purpose that fits somewhere between the two; like a traditional glass growler, it holds the freshest available beer, but unlike a growler, it has a shelf-life of up to four weeks.

“I love getting my growlers filled when I visit one of the local craft breweries in the Lower Mainland,” says Adam Crandall, Moody Ales co-founder. “The problem is that I constantly forget them at home and I either have to buy another glass growler, or I leave without fresh beer. From what I can tell by speaking with our customers, I’m not the only one who’s had this problem. For us the Crowler® has a lot of benefits, and avoiding this problem is just one of them.”

Only available in the Moody Ales tasting room, the Crowler® is a single use 946 mL can that is filled and seamed one at a time in the brewery. The brewery uses a Dixie Canning table top can seamer which Crandall purchased at a local auction in BC. In order to to be able to seam the large format cans produced by Ball Corporation, the brewery ordered a conversion kit from Dixie in Athens, Georgia.

“Another thing we love about the cans is that we fill them right in front of the customers,” says Crandall. After the can is purged of air with carbon dioxide, it is filled with beer directly off a tap at the Moody Ales tasting room. “The next 20 seconds are mesmerizing for onlookers. The seamer is turned on, we push a lever down, the can spins, and after some mechanical clicking and whirring, the the can lid is now permanently attached to the can,” says Crandall. “Folks will just stare at the machine trying to figure out how it works. It’s a lot of fun to explain the process to customers, which is something we like to do for all steps of the brewing process.”

The Crowler® cans were launched by Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado earlier this year and are now popping up at breweries across the United States. The cans contain 68% recycled material and are fully recyclable and returnable like any other beverage container. Their light weight makes them easier to transport and they chill faster than bottles. Unlike bottles, they also block all light which can cause off-flavours in beer. Best of all, due to the quality of the seal, they last much longer than traditional growler fills.



Moody Ales launched the Crowler® quietly on Friday just a day before releasing a new flagship beer, the Lusty Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Crowlers® are currently priced at $8 plus deposit. The brewery sold over 70 Crowlers® over the weekend with many more expected to go out the door over the coming months.

MoodyAles.com