Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. is expanding into cans.



The Akron-based brewery will release Towpath Terrier IPA — its first canned beer — in six-packs and on draft March 21. The English-style IPA will be available at its Taphouse in Akron and East Bank location in Cleveland before hitting retail markets.



Cans are a departure for Thirsty Dog, which has released its packaged beer in bottles only.



"We’re going to do some cans," co-owner John Najeway said. "There’s room for both."



Many longtime, respected Ohio breweries such as Fat Head’s, Great Lakes, Columbus, Jackie O’s and The Brew Kettle are either switching over to cans completely or adding them to their lineups.



Cans have many advantages over bottles. Shipping costs are lower, because a can weighs less than a bottle. And cans are welcome in some places that bottles aren’t such as many beaches and parks. Then there's the belief that the can, not the bottle, is a superior container because the beer is not susceptible to being damaged by light.



The craft beer industry accepted cans a long time ago, with whole beer festivals and competitions devoted to canned beer. There’s even a can design competition. MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati was the first modern craft brewery in Ohio to can its beer when it opened in 2013, with many major brewers following suit when they opened such as Rhinegeist in Cincinnati and Warped Wing in Dayton.



"The trends in packaging have been fairly clear and inexorable over the last few years, as cans have taken share at the expense of bottles," Brewers Association economist Bart Watson wrote last month in a report on packaging trends. "Whereas in the high growth years for craft there was some evidence that can packaging could be largely incremental, the slower growth environment has left no such ambiguities, and in the past few years, the growth of cans correlates highly with the decline in bottle sales."



He noted that 2020 will likely be the first year that cans outsell bottles in distributed craft.



Thirsty Dog plans to add other cans to its regular rotation. Fans can expect a shandy in cans in mid-April, Najeway said.



The brewery is using a mobile canner for now, but is exploring purchasing its own canning line.



As for the Towpath Terrier, it’s an English-style IPA — an interesting departure from the more prevalent hazy and West Coast styles that dominate craft breweries today.



"It’s a historic, iconic style and it has a lot of flavor to it," Najeway said. "It’s been around before the latest haze craze."



The six-packs of Towpath Terrier will retail for $10.99. The can features a map of the 87-mile Towpath Trail which runs from Cleveland to Zoar.



Najeway said the brewery is planning to host tastings at bars and restaurants along the trail.