Jacob Laxen

jlaxen@coloradoan.com

Cans or bottles? That’s a growing conundrum for craft beer consumers.

“For the longest time, the canned beers were mostly all American lagers,” said Brewers Association economist Bart Watson. “Everything else you were buying came in bottles.”

But canned craft beer is now on the rise, earning a 17.2 percent national share of packaged beer sales in 2016 — up from 5.6 percent back in 2013.

Major craft brewers are adding canning lines and smaller breweries are turning to crowler canning technology in taprooms.

“People are realizing the can is a great vessel for quality beer,” said Chad Melis of Longmont’s Oskar Blues Brewery. “People continue to make more complex and more challenging beers in a can.”

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Oskar Blues became the first American craft brewer to launch its own canning line in 2002 — a few other breweries had previously canned its beer on a contract basis.

“It was something completely against the grain,” Melis said. “But we had learned the aluminum advantages of being of being better protected from light and oxygen, being more portable, and infinitely recyclable. It was a situation where we had nothing to lose.”

As Oskar Blues grew to become Colorado’s second-largest craft brewer — and 14th-largest in the nation — neighboring brewers in the Centennial State began adopting the innovation.

New Belgium Brewing, the state’s largest craft brewer, added a Fat Tire canning line in 2008. The system was replaced in 2012 and now cans numerous brands. The state’s next-largest brewers, Odell Brewing of Fort Collins and Left Hand Brewing of Longmont, each added canning lines in 2015 and have since released some brands exclusively in cans.

Colorado led the nation last year with cans accounting for 45 percent of the state’s packaged craft beer sales. Oklahoma was the lowest at 5 percent.

“Colorado is often a leader in the market,” said Josh Hall of Fort Collins Brewery. “The versatility of cans also really fit the outdoor lifestyle here.”

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Fort Collins Brewery added a canning line last year, deciding to ditch its slightly faster bottling line completely a few months later.

“Cans are much lighter, meaning we can stack more on a pallet,” Hall said. “So it not only helps with shipping and freight costs, but also our carbon footprint.”

Some of the largest growth in the can industry has come from smaller neighborhood breweries.

Many are adopting inexpensive single 32-ounce crowler machines, another Oskar Blues innovation inspired by garden vegetable canning equipment. The beers are often filled and canned right in front of customers in a matter of seconds.

“The truth is (64-ounce) glass growlers don’t have a very good shelf life,” said Will Herdrick, whose six-month-old Intersect Brewing of Fort Collins uses a crowler machine. “If you want to take our beer home it will last much longer with crowlers.

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“The (crowler machine) is mobile and easy to use ... And there’s no longer a stigma about canned beer.”

Oskar Blues will still fill up growlers, but doesn’t sell any glass products.

“Every time somebody puts a quality beer in a can, it has helped us,” Melis said. “A high tide raises all ships.”

Follow Jacob Laxen on Twitter and Instagram @jacoblaxen.

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