(Boston, MA) – Boston Beer Company Chairman, Jim Koch, visited WEEI Radio in Boston on Thursday night to promote Samuel Adams Boston 26.2 Brew ahead of Monday’s Boston Marathon. The most interesting sidebar of the night related to cans. A representative of Merrimack Valley Distributing named Josh asked Koch whether Boston Beer would add cans (note: after muttering something about Sierra Nevada copying Boston Beer)…
“Yeah, sooner or later. Right now, I still pick up some metallic taste from cans. We’re actually working with can manufacturers to try to upgrade and improve the quality of the basic beer can. When we can do that, we’ll have Sam Adams in a can. Maybe a year or something like that. I’m trying to improve the basic beer can and maybe we’ll get there. I think the main advantage is that you can take it more places: on a deck, on a boat, on a golf course…”
What BS. I’d love to see him sit down and do a blind taste test with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottles and cans and see which is which.
8:00 minute mark is the can comment (also tagged, but in case people miss that).
I think he means he gets it when drinking straight from the can which is how most people will drink it (especially when they’re outdoors).
I thought his gripe was the quality of the internal lining imparting a metallic taste to the beer. It will be tough to get rid of the metallic quality drinking straight out of the can unless you put some kind of layer or mouthpiece over the opening, which would be weird. It sounds like something MillerCoors is working on in a laboratory right now.
Maybe it’s the BPA he’s tasting? /snark
Seriously though, the BPA issue hasn’t been solved for cans so taste should probably be the least of anyone’s concerns until it is.
I would say make new liners that at 100% safe.
I don’t know.. even if it IS quality beer in that can, and they can eliminate any trace of the metallic taste, I still think putting beer in a can cheapens it, especially since the conglomerates have always been doing it, and to me cans scream “cheap” It’s just always seemed ‘classier’ to drink at least out of a bottle, even at an outdoor party, or out of a keg/draft/bottle into a glass. to me, cans just get associated with beer coozies with a NASCAR logo on them or something drunk by a bunch of yahoos on a fishing/hunting trip — or god help us, by the frat kids. I won’t complain about the taste of cans as a turn off to buying them but if you really “take pride in your beer”, you usually drink it a traditional way. more power to the can drinkers i guess, I’ll keep my bottles and glasses thank you.