Way!

There is a nice little discussion going on in the beer world right now. To can or not to can, that is the question. Can craft beer come in a can? The answer: HELL YES it can!

Amongst craft brewers today, there is a nice little trend to offer their tasty brews in cans as well as the bottle. Why? Well, until recently if you wanted to go camping, to the beach, on a bike ride, go to the park, whatever, you were limited to macro brews and nothing too fancy and full of flavor. Now that has all changed!

First, some history. The beer can was invented in the late 1920′s, and for that matter ALL can beverages began here…with beer! Cans began with a cone top that was sealed with the same crown used to cap bottles. Eventually they became plain flat or “punch tops” in the 30′s which lead way to the zip top that even us thirty somethings remember prior to the conventional tabs we see today.

Little trivia tidbit: ACCO (American Can Company) first explored the idea of canning at the request of Olympia Brewing Company founder of Leopold Schmidt early as 1909, but the can technology wasn’t sufficient enough to stand up to pasteurization. Oh well…

So, even though beer has been canned since the 1920′s why did it take until about 80 years later for someone to can a craft beer? Who knows?! Whatever the case, in 2002 Oskar Blues Brewery bucked the system and canned their flagship Dale’s Pale Ale and started a whole new avenue for craft breweries. The one thing that Oskar Blues understood was that the stigma of a “metal” taste when your beer came from a can was all in peoples heads. In fact, if you were unaware almost all cans contain a coating or liner on the inside that prevents the liquid from ever actually touching anything metal. Feel free to blind taste test someone and have them try to find any “off-flavors”.

It’s all in peoples heads. By the way…what are kegs made of? Anyway…

So not only does a can not impart any unwanted flavors into our favorite beverage, it also protects it from the two worst enemies of beer: oxygen and light! When a can is sealed, it’s sealed! There is no worry of additional oxygen seeping in, which is possible with normal crowns on bottles. Now some breweries worry about the surface area on a can being larger and that allowing more oxygen to find it’s way in during the filling process… well, not to worry! This has an AWESOME solution! Can-conditioning! Yes! The same idea behind bottle conditioning (an additional fermentation in the final package to create natural carbonation) is being used to rid the can of any extra O2 in the package!

Now I will tell you this 100% of the time…My favorite Fat Tire is from the can! They can-condition and it adds this wonderful extra layer of complexity to an already dynamic beer! Try one, they are amazing!

Now as for light…do I really have to explain this? OK, short version. Obviously the aluminum from the can is not transparent, duh. Well, that cannot be said about glass. Why is this important? The harmful UV’s from sunlight and florescent light that cause the skunky aroma in beers cannot get in to harm canned beer. Ever tried Heineken from a bottle side-by-side with a Heineken from the can? You should! Hell, I’ll do it with you!

So…by now I think you get my point, can beer is good beer. You might be willing to go as far as to say that it is SUPERIOR beer! It can go any where, it weighs less, it’s compact, it gets colder faster, they are fun to collect, they protect the beer better… the list goes on and on!So next time you see something in a can…guess what! It’s just as good, if not better than the bottle!

If you were wondering, JJ Taylor Craft Breweries that carry beer in cans include: August Schell’s, Breckenridge Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery, Leinenkugel’s, Magic Hat Brewery, New Belgium Brewing Company, Shiner Beers, and Sprecher Brewery.

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What better time to show the world what fantastic things Indiana brewers are doing?

Of course, the Super Bowl is a corporate event and the corporate beers pay dearly to get their names onto signs, banners, shampoo bottles, potato chip bags and just about anything else that has room for print. Frankly, it’s an advertisers wet dream and the stakes are way too big for Indiana brewers to compete on the level as the big boys.

But we have the advantage. In Indiana we have real people making real beer. And we have passionate drinkers that care about what they consume and who they get their beer from. And we have the means to let visitors to our state know about it.

During the week of the Super Bowl, Monarch Beverage and World Class Beer will be sponsoring free shuttle buses that will run between downtown, Fountain Square and Mass Ave taking visitors to bars, restaurants and stores along the route. On that bus will be advertising for our “Drink Local” campaign along with a Twitter hashtag, #IndianaBeer.

During Super Bowl week, we strongly encourage everyone to use the #IndianaBeer hashtag to get the word out about local beer and where it can be found anywhere that Super Bowl attendees might be drinking!

These malty sweet offerings tend to be a favorite winter seasonal. Big malt presence, both in flavor and body. The color ranges from brownish reds to nearly pitch black. Hop bitterness is generally low, leveled and balanced, but hop character can be pronounced. Alcohol warmth is not uncommon.

Many English versions contain no spices, though some brewers of spiced winter seasonal ales will slap “Winter Warmer” on the label. Those that are spiced, tend to follow the “wassail” tradition of blending robust ales with mixed spices, before hops became the chief “spice” in

Check out a few of our winter craft beers (some that follow the winter trend and some that do their best to buck it):

• Sam Adams Winter Lager
• Boulevard Nutcracker Ale
• Magic Hat Howl
• Schlafly Christmas Ale
• Bell’s Christmas Ale
• Samuel Smith Winter Welcome
• New Belgium Snow Day
• Blue Moon Winter Abbey Ale

What is Beer Spy?

Beer Spy is a complete sales history of each beer distributor in the World Class Beer network. It’s a list of all their brands and products and the locations that are selling them. Each day, we submit many thousands of new records to Beer Spy by importing the sales history of our distributor partners to our website, making them searchable by brewery, beer style, brand and then making it possible for you to search that data to find the beer you want at the beer seller closest to your zip code.

Mobile

It’s also mobile friendly. It renders very nicely on smart phones of all brands as long as they have a web browser. It’s not a native app (we’re working on that!) but all the features of the web version are available on your smart phone right now!

It Only Lists Certain Brands

Yes, though we’d love to list them all and are working towards that goal. Frankly, we list the brands we sell. That’s easy. But we’re always open to listing any other brands, even our competitors brands, as long as we can get the data for them. In some cases, individual brewers are happy to send us that data and we post it to Beer Spy, even though we don’t sell it.

Some of the Locations are Out of Date

Perhaps. We list what we sell and we list those locations for a 90 day period. After that, we drop them from the list unless the location has re-ordered. Most days we list around 45,000 different stores, bars and restaurants across the United States and there’s no way for us to look on every shelf or be certain that the beer is still there. It might have sold out the day it arrived, but that’s why we list telephone numbers and other stores that carry the beer you’re looking for.

It Isn’t Perfect

No, it isn’t. I sort of think of it like Winston Churchill’s take on democracy, it’s the worst possible tool for finding beer, except for every other one that has been tried. I think it’s the best possible solution to provide accurate beer locations on a large scale anywhere. It relies only on facts and it can track many thousands of different beers in many different states.

Finch’s is a 2-year-old craft brewer out of the Windy City that puts some truly delicious craft beer in cans. WCB-CI will carry the 4 packs of pint-sized cans in the Golden Wing Blonde Ale and the Cut Throat Pale Ale, beginning immediately!

To learn more about Finch, visit them on the web at www.finchbeer.com, find them on Facebook at /FinchBeer or on Twitter at /FinchBeer

Begin checking the Beer Spy for Finch as early as next week!

Clutch:

It started as chance, a sandwich shop encounter between a band and a fan. It ended as the Clutch Collaboration. This pleasing, two-part potion was brewed with chocolate and black malts for a rich and roasty overtone, then fused with a dry, substratum of sour for a bold and audacious flavor. Black as night, this beer is blended at 80% stout, 20% dark sour wood beer for a collaboration that begins with a sour edge and finishes with a big, dark malt character, lingering, sweet on your palate.

The two flavors come as raucous and riotous as the Maryland band and their Fort Collins fans, getting loud and making beer, together.

Kick:

New Belgium and Elysian are together again with Kick, a rich and tart pumpkin cranberry ale blended with wood-aged beer for a uniquely complex harvest season sour. The russet and orange of autumn shimmer through a slight haze like sunlight through the smoke from burning leaves. The taste and texture of pumpkin give way to the refreshing tang of cranberries and critters, satisfying and exciting with each swallow, finishing with an urge for more.

Kim brought sour from New Belgium; Dick brought pumpkin from Elysian. You’ll get a Kick out of their collaboration.

The flagship of the New Belgium brands, Fat Tire’s early appeal quickly became evident. People liked everything about it. Except the name. Fat Tire won fans is in its sense of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.

Visit Fat Tire on the Web

The most traditional of fall seasonal beers, the Marzen or Oktoberfest, has its roots in Germany. According to our site, these amber-style lagers get their names from the month they’re traditionally brewed in -  March – to be ready for October drinking.  The most popular Oktoberfest beer, Sam Adams’ Octoberfest, can be found almost universally in central Illinois, but most craft and German brewers do some version of an Oktoberfest. Especially worth sampling is the Ayinger Oktoberfest and Magic Hat’s Hex. (Learn more and get a list of Oktoberfest/Marzen beers)

Another popular fall style is the Vegetable Beer, specifically when pumpkin is involved. While Blue Moon is bringing pumpkin beer to the masses with its Harvest Pumpkin Ale, the truly decadent brew comes from Schlafly’s Pumpkin Ale, a limited release beer that regularly wins over drinkers with its pumpkin pie-like spicing. (Learn more and get a list of Vegetable beers)

Finally, craft beer wouldn’t be craft beer without a few rebels. New Belgium Brewing Co., not content to join the pack with the malty creations of fall, instead produces a Golden Ale called Hoptober. Hoptober can be a bitter pull for those expecting the caramel sweetness of an Octoberfest, but for hop heads, Hoptober is a nice alternative to the malt-heavy lineup in the autumn months. (Learn more about Hoptober)

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