A week ago I confessed my bias against beer that came out of cans, rather than from a tap or one of the brown glass bottles that have come to be associated with America's craft-brew renaissance. Reminder, on the counting-our-blessings principle: for us Yanks this truly is the Golden Age of Beer.

I have the additional blessing of being able to rely on the reading public to set me straight. In case you shared my confusion on this topic, the sampling of messages below may be useful to you as well. Visual aid at right: a can of Surly Furious, one of the fine products of Surly Brewing company of Minnesota, which many readers touted.

From a reader in Pennsylvania:



Snob! Throwback! Don't you read Consumer Reports? Cans are much superior to bottles in protecting beer from light, its worst enemy. All the classy European beers come in cans. If you've ever ordered beer on an airplane, it was in a can because a canned beer weighs only 2/3 as much as a bottled one. It also doesn't shatter if dropped. The idea that the beer tastes of aluminum is an urban legend. After all, draft beer comes in a big can.



Many people wrote to hammer home the point made in that last sentence. As someone in Colorado put it, "New Belgium Brewing in Ft. Collins has their flagship brew "Fat Tire" available in cans as well as their "Ranger IPA" [JF: I have had this, and it's great] and "Sunshine Wheat". Great for traveling. And don't forget, ALL draft beer is packaged in aluminum kegs."