Price of Residing7:14How craft brewers got here to like the tall can
Anybody strolling by way of the beer aisles of their native liquor store shall be acquainted with the scene: rows and rows of native craft beer, swathed in distinctive and infrequently vibrant logos and artwork — all in tall, 473-ml (or 16-oz.) cans.
The tall can — also called the tallboy, king can or pounder — is not new. Milwaukee-based Schlitz Brewing Firm began promoting them within the Fifties.
Nevertheless it’s grow to be an more and more in style dimension for craft beer, a class that has principally eschewed the smaller 355-ml cans and glass bottles lately.
In keeping with beer brewers, the tall can’s recognition is extra than simply the enchantment of getting extra to drink per can.
Haydon Dewes, co-founder of Cabin Brewing Firm in Calgary, says the price of a tall can versus a brief can is “negligible,” no less than by way of the extra aluminum required to provide it.
The true causes are extra about advertising and marketing, model consciousness and craft beer traits that return no less than a decade.
Tall cans assist distinguish craft product: brewer
“It is us saying: we’re craft beer, we’re not a macro beer. We do not put our beer into quick cans and put it right into a field of 36. It is a premium product that is available in a four-pack,” Dewes informed Price of Residing.
Cabin’s web site sells their 4 flagship beers for $4.50 for a single can, and in four-packs for about $17 to $18.
Dewes says the four-pack for tall cans has grow to be a craft beer customary, due to long-held expectations on how a lot packs of beer prices.
“A 4 pack is about the identical quantity as a six pack … and the fee works out roughly the identical as properly,” he mentioned.
It additionally helps distinguish it from non-craft manufacturers that promote smaller cans in larger quantity.
“There’s one thing, for higher or worse, fairly unique a couple of four-pack. It is like in the event you see a 4 pack of tall cans, you recognize that that is a craft beer. In case you see a field of 12 quick cans, your mind is telling you: ‘That is a finances beer. That is acquired to be cheaper, absolutely.’ “
Tall cans make up 80 per cent of craft beer gross sales in Ontario, in response to an e-mail from the LCBO. Brief cans, in the meantime, solely make about 5 per cent of craft beer gross sales.
Tall cans are additionally in style amongst many non-craft beer manufacturers, the LCBO famous, accounting for 60 per cent of gross sales in that class.
Having a bigger can means extra actual property to cowl with distinctive artwork and logos that make an instantaneous impression and inform prospects precisely what they’re getting.
“We even have to inform individuals what is the title of that beer, what sort of beer it’s, and likewise our model, all type of on one area on the facet of the cans,” mentioned Pete Nguyen, a companion and chief artistic officer at Edmonton’s Sea Change Brewing Co.
The ‘one and completed’ and pattern enchantment
Benj Steinman, author and president of the U.S.-based commerce journal Beer Marketer’s Insights, says that within the U.S., no less than, craft beers have confronted issue reaching shoppers lately.
The outlier of that’s tall cans, which promote very properly in comfort shops. He mentioned they additionally permit individuals to have only one beer and really feel glad.
“I feel it is type of a beautiful worth level, and it is type of a one-and-done,” Steinman mentioned.
Craft beer persons are type of like chook watchers; they only need all of it. They need to have the ability to tick off as many as they presumably can. – Haydon Dewes, co-founder of Cabin Brewing Firm
In keeping with Dewes, promoting in singles additionally permits beer connoisseurs to pattern a number of varieties in a single go.
“As a substitute of strolling away with a field of 12 of the identical beer, you possibly can stroll away with 12 totally different beers,” he mentioned.
“Craft beer persons are type of like chook watchers; they only need all of it. They need to have the ability to tick off as many as they presumably can.”
Thank the Alchemist
Dewes and Steinman each pointed to Vermont-based Alchemist Beer, a Vermont-based brewer, for sparking the recognition of tall cans for craft beer with its Heady Topper double IPA in 2011.
Whereas most smaller scale beers have been launched in bottles on the time, Heady Topper got here in a particular can with high-contrast black and silver artwork, and the directions “Drink from the can!” written alongside the highest rim.
In keeping with Steinman, it sparked “an amazing quantity of buzz” amongst “craft geek cognoscenti” shoppers.
Alchemist co-founder John Kimmich is fast to notice his was not the primary craft beer to come back in tall cans, pointing to examples like California-based Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo IPA. However he actually agrees with the evaluation that Heady Topper vaulted the apply into widespread recognition.
Many components went into the choice, Kimmich defined, together with the truth that aluminum cans imply lighter transport prices versus glass bottles and damaged bottles are probably extra harmful than a crushed can.
However he mentioned going with tall cans additionally helped Alchemist make a significant assertion about their model.
“We at all times wished to have the ability to present our prospects with an absolute world class beer at a really affordable and truthful worth, and to current it within the final blue collar, easy container, which is a pounder.”
From tall to small
Whereas the tall-can strategy has helped craft beer develop in recognition, it might need distanced it from the traditional beer shopper: somebody on the lookout for a big field of small cans which are simple to drink — responsibly — in multiples.
In current weeks, Sea Change started to launch their Blond Ale in brief, 355ml cans in an effort to succeed in these prospects. This addition to their typical tall can pipeline made for a dearer course of, in response to Nguyen.
“Our packaging prices are quite a bit larger up for it, however we assume that it will give us entry to a market … that would see us facet by facet with say, like a 15 or 24 pack of a Budweiser or Molson product.”
Nguyen, who is likely one of the important designers for all of Sea Change’s labelling, mentioned it was additionally extra work to adapt the artwork to smaller cans.
“You may’t simply shrink it. So [we] type of needed to rejig a few of the proportions to ensure that it to really feel prefer it was taking over the correct quantity of area on a small can.”
