Getting Canned

Thanks to crowlers, craft beer is finally taking its place at tailgates.

- Amity Moore Joyce

Craft beer lovers, rejoice! Gone are the days of only 3.2 brews. Gone are the days of smuggling a glass growler into a no-glass zone. Gone are the days of pouring out stale beer after only a few hours. Crowlers have arrived.

Crowlers are aluminum, quarter-gallon cans that can be filled with your favorite craft brew from the taps of your local pub, sealed right there, and toted off, staying crisp and carbonated until popped open and enjoyed—then thrown in the recycling bin. Unheard of in the glass-dominated world of craft beer.

Although the specialty containers have been around since 2014 when Longmont, Colorado-based brewery Oskar Blues formally announced them, interest in crowlers has been growing as alcoholic beverage control (ABC) laws in more states have loosened.

“ABC laws do not allow the 32-ounce crowler in Minnesota. We make 25-ounce cans for that state alone,” says Parrish Stapleton, co-owner at Dixie Canner Co., which manufactures can seamers for sealing crowlers right at the bar or brewery. He says for the past several years, some states would not allow crowler sales, but things are changing. “Texas now can sell crowlers. Here in Georgia, they just allowed it where the brewer could sell them from the brewery.”

Stapleton points to Oskar Blues as the crowler inventor, noting that though the can is manufactured by Ball Corporation, it was Oskar Blues—specifically Jeremy Rudolf, their CANovative Thinker—who pushed to put craft beer in cans. “We’ve been fortunate enough to have tremendous support from our can supplier, Ball, ever since we were crazy enough to be the first ones to put a hoppy craft beer in cans, with Dale’s Pale Ale in 2002,” explains Rudolf.