OnTap Magazine

FEATURE Although SAB has been canning for years, the rst craft foray into cans was Nottingham Road Brewing Company way back in 2013. CBC ran a huge can campaign (canpaign?) in 2016 and Devil’s Peak took it further with frequent can releases containing (cantaining? Sorry – I will stop) speciality one-o brews aimed at craft beer geeks. ey then managed to get the rst SA craft beer onto an airline – by o ering it in a lightweight and portable receptacle: a can. Another champion of the can was Afro Caribbean Brewing Company, who packaged their beers for the rst time in 2017 – exclusively in cans. Fast forward to 2019 and the canning revolution has really taken o . e rst mobile craft canning company in SA, Tiny Keg Canning, launched in February 2019 headed up by Tom Riley who left SAB to really get into beer. He has partnered with a Sudanese bottling company and that League of Beers chap who like to pepper articles about cans with shameless can-related puns. ey have launched with a Wild Goose system which enables them to service brewhouses from the 1000-litre all the way to the 18,000-litre scale. To date they have lled over 200,000 beers into cans locally, providing the service to a range of brewers and soon winemakers as well. In quick succession, Frontier Canning, brainchild of Banana Jam/ACBC founder Greg Casey, has launched, selling smaller, locally produced systems focusing on in-house use rather than mobile canning. is was followed by Liam McElhinney, head brewer at Saggy Stone, who brought in a Cask System from Canada to start Silver Tree Canning – SA’s second mobile canning company. Greg has long been one of the pioneers of craft brews in SA, so it is no surprise that he is once again ahead of the game and evangelising a better way for beer. Liam, a certi ed beer judge and longstanding Southyeasters member, has brought his pedigree to the can revolution and has already managed to get another SA craft beer original and pioneer into cans: Boston Breweries. But it doesn’t stop there. If you start to pay attention to liquor store shelves, cans have undoubtedly arrived. Stellies, Drifter, Darling, Kennel, Karoo Craft Breweries and Richmond Hill have notably got rmly behind cans and Jack Black have also just launched their lager in 440ml “mini kegs”. Some might say that this sudden competition is cannibalising the industry, but in our eyes, we are on a joint journey to get the brewers of SA to move over to the can, and the more of us in the team, the better. I con dently (can dently?) predict that over the next few years, cans will continue to edge bottles o the shelves in South Africa, which is great for brewers, great for the environment and great for anyone who wants to take a cold bevvy on a long hike or simply cool down a beer quickly after a rough day at the o ce. SOUTH AFRI CANS The first ever beer to be packaged in a can was in the USA in 1935, and many mainstream brews have long been available in aluminium as well as glass. Dale’s Pale Ale is known as the first canned craft beer to break into mainstream attention from 2002 onwards. Recently big brewers such as Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Lagunitas andBostonhavemovedintocans,aswell as the new(er) kids on the block(s) who are driving the wave of NEIPA cans such as Heady Topper, Weld Werks and Other Half. The genesis of canning has largely been driven by the mobile canning revolution, when Wild Goose in the States and Cask in Canada – among others – found ways to reduce the physical footprint of canning lines and rebuild them to be able to withstand transport. Suddenly canning was available and cost-effective to small and medium producers, effectively democratising the cans. (Gives new insight into that Obama slogan doesn’t it?) And it’s not just beer. Wine can sales in the US grew from $2 million in 2012 to $69 million in 2019. In June of this year, AB InBev surprised many analysts when they took a majority stake in a canned wine company, showing that even the very big boys do believe in the potential of cans in other categories. THE AMERI CAN REVOLUTION Cans have undoubtedly arrived 22 | Spring 2019 | ontapmag.co.za