Allagash Brewing Company | North Sky Stout

A chill flows through the air as crisp autumn season approaches. With that chill comes the desire for warm flannels, fire pits, and dark beers. Allagash Brewing Company’s newest addition to their year-round lineup, North Sky stout, is precisely the beer for your stargazing, s’ more making fall night.
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Revolution Brewing Unveils City Series Branding to Celebrate Its Chicago Roots

The beauty of craft beer is in how intensely local it feels. Supporting your local brewery means supporting your city. While many breweries expand and grow in distribution, there’s something unique and familiar about drinking a beer that’s brewed close to you. With unique names and labels, breweries across the country lean into this understanding of what it means to be fiercely local. Illinois’ largest independently-owned brewery, Revolution Brewing, is interwoven into the tapestry of Chicago’s rich beer scene. Now, it’s going one step farther with the release of its City Series packaging refresh, which pairs iconic images of Chicago with some Revolution’s most popular session beers. 

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Off Color Brewing to Add Cans to its Diverse Packaging Portfolio

Off Color Brewing has built its vibrant niche in the brewing community by doing things differently. Known for experimentation in its wide array of curious beers – and sake – the Chicago brewing destination is also familiar with experiments in packaging. Last year, Off Color brought the small-format 250ml bottle format to Chicago. Now, it’s joining a variety of its Chicago colleagues by announcing that its beer will soon be available in 16oz cans. Here are the details on Off Color’s recent packaging announcement, along with what Chicago beer drinkers should expect. 

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Analyzing the Influx of European Brewers Canning Their Beers to Better Compete in the U.S.

The craft beer scene in the U.S. has been around for a relatively short period of time. Part of its rapid growth and success can be attributed to the industry’s willingness to evolve and contort itself to appeal to the ever-changing whims of today’s curious consumer. While hard seltzers and fruit-puree sours might be nothing more than a passing trend, one recent market shift seems to be here for the long haul: craft beer in cans. The benefits of cans are clear: they’re more transportable, better for the environment, and boast longer shelf life than their glass counterparts. A huge signal that the can trend is more of a foundational than fleeting trend in the U.S. is that century’s old European brewers are also augmenting their typically rigid perceptions of packaging to appeal to the American market. 

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Lagunitas Adapts its Packaging to Evolve its IPA Portfolio

Lagunitas Brewing Co. is a massive brewery with a global reach. Yet, they still remain nimble enough to adapt to the changing drinking preferences of today’s craft beer consumers. From draft, to bottles, to cans, the preferred drinking vessel for many in America has changed over the past decade. Largely because beer became more intertwined with the unplanned outings and weekend activities of enthusiasts. With an eye on appealing to consumers on-the-go and in the midst of day-drinking activities, Lagunitas has decided to make two drastic updates to their canning portfolio. Their bellwether Lagunitas IPA arrives in 19.2oz stovepipes and sessionable DayTime IPA comes to 12oz cans. We asked Lagunitas’ Communications Director, Karen Hamilton, about the news.

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We Talked with Allagash | Canning Allagash White; River Trip Debut

Classics can stay classics while still getting a refresh. Such is the case for Allagash White, one of the staple Belgian beers in the United States. Allagash announced last week that they’ll be canning Allagash White, as well as a new beer in their core lineup: River Trip. I got in touch with Brett Willis, marketing specialist at Allagash, to learn more about the announcement.

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The Beer Industry Braces for Aluminum Tariffs

Although the American economy has largely enjoyed growth the last several years, portions within the broader picture have been in a state of flux for some time. For macro and micro brewers alike, the current state of aluminum has both micro and macro brewers concerned. A quick peek at the shelves of your local retailer will reveal rows and rows of aluminum cans. 12, 16 and even 19.2 oz cans have been a huge boon for larger craft brewers and macro producers like MillerCoors, offering greater shelf life and added convenience to consumers. But the strategy of putting everything into cans is entering a period of uncertainty due to the recently proposed tariffs and sanctions put in place by President Donald Trump.

While Trump claims the new regulations will help bolster American business, small to regional sized brewers like WeldWerks and Founders, along with massive brewing giant MillerCoors, are voicing their concerns.

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Fast Facts on Corridor Brewery & Provisions’ First Canned Beer: SqueezIt

When I first moved to Chicago in 2014, DryHop Brewers was the first brewery I visited, as they had just started as well. Now, more than three years later, the folks at DryHop and its sister brewery, Corridor Brewery & Provisions, have become a staple of Chicago’s Northside. As you grow up, you change; for breweries, that usually means expanding distribution and moving into new packaging, which was why I was excited to hear that Corridor plans to release their uber-popular SqueezIt Double Dry Hopped Double IPA in 16oz cans. Read More

Q&A with Elysian Brewing’s Head Brewer Josh Waldman

This month I had the opportunity to interview Elysian Brewing Head Brewer Josh Waldman to reflect on the state of Elysian brewing as well as some of the new additions to their canned lineup. These canned vessels possess the advantage of being super portable, light weight and literally crushable!

We were also given the chance to sample new cans of Day Glow IPA 16 oz cans possessing the same recognizable logo, and that familiar sweet hop forward profile. Find out more on what’s happening at Elysian Brewing from Josh Waldman.

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Rogue Ales & Spirits | 6 Hop IPA

ABV: 6.66% | IBU: 87

If Hamm’s is the beer from the land of sky blue waters, Rogue is the beer from the land of hop green farms (and amber waves of grain). Any doubt about this notion is removed after taking one sip of Rogue 6 Hop IPA. The Rogue collaboration with Mother Nature incorporates a harvest’s worth of wheat, rye, yeast, hops and “free range coastal water,” for a beer that is super hoppy, but presents far more to drinkers than just existing as a “hoppy beer.”

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Around the Bend | Vera Pistachio Cream Ale, New Cans and Parties

Around the Bend Beer Co. keeps expanding and releasing new beer. In 2016, Around the Bend introduced Mr. Marmalade IIPA with bitter oranges from Seville, Spain; Villainous IPA with its four yeast strains — two British and two West Coast; and a little beer called Vera, a pistachio cream ale. Vera, though, was not packaged. Why would anyone think a Pistachio beer would be popular? Well, it was. It really was. So, in spring of 2017 the beer returns and will be sold in cans. In fact — as of this spring all of the beer from Around the Bend will arrive to stores in the form of 12 oz canned goodies.

Around the Bend will be part of, or hosting, several events to commemorate the return of Vera and introduce its cans to the world.

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River North Releases Cans of Colorado IPA & Pils

The blokes at River North Brewery (Denver, CO) have added two new beers to its can lineup, Colorado IPA and Pils. Joining perennial favorites River North White and FarmHouse, these new additions are the perfect complement to the brewery’s lineup of #AdventureFuel canned exclusively for Colorado beer lovers. This is big news for a brewery that has recently moved to a new location that allows them to brew beers they have wanted to for a while. Although this is a branching out from their Belgian influences, they are quick to note that they are not retiring any of their longstanding beers.

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Weekly Growler Fill | National Beer News Roundup

Left Hand brews are headed to cans, Russian River finally expands, and Sierra Nevada’s Mills River brewery achieves LEED Platinum certification. The beer world is bustling and it is time for you to catch up. Read on to catch the details of the latest craft beer news in this edition of the Weekly Growler Fill.

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Weekly Growler Fill | National Beer News Roundup

Lululemon is in the business of brewing, Odell will start canning, and Venezuelans might have a hard time finding beer in the near future. What is the world coming to? Find out the details in this edition of the Weekly Growler Fill.

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Ultimate 6er | Carolina Cans

Today, we’re going on a little adventure with six new (to me) North Carolina beers, all of which come in cans. There are brews representing the piedmont cities of Raleigh, Pittsboro, Hillsborough, and Fuquay-Varina; those in the foothills, Hickory and Morganton; and the Land of the Sky, mountainous Asheville. We’re gonna see a lot, so hang on and please enjoy.

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Ultimate 6er | 6 Southern Beers to Shoot the Hooch

Summer in Atlanta means three things: drenching humidity, the annual 4th of July Peachtree 10K Road Race (which is held in the drenching humidity), and Shooting the Hooch.

While Shooting the Hooch may sound a little NSFW, we promise, it’s not. “Hooch” is short for the Chattahoochee River, and “Shootin’” means you’re leisurely floating down said river in an inner tube — and trust me, you’re going to need a beer for that. Read More

Finch’s Beer Co.: threadless India Pale Ale

ABV: 6%

IBU: 90

On Friday afternoon, I popped into my neighborhood Whole Foods to pick up something new to drink for the weekend. DC summers are a swampy mess … Read More

Oskar Blues Brewery – Ten Fidy Imperial Stout

A spontaneous road trip from Denver to Estes Park may turn into a random brewery trip if you’re lucky. More than 15 breweries sit between the two and it’s always a good idea to take advantage of that. On Saturday, I stopped at Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont. The colder weather out here in Colorado has opened up a lot of stout options over the last month. Hearing that Oskar Blue’s had one called Ten Fidy Imperial Stout left me intrigued. Read More

One Minute Beer Review: Ska Brewing Company’s Euphoria Pale Ale

It’s not often that a brewery’s winter seasonal is a pale ale. But, Ska gives zero cares about that. Their Euphoria Pale Ale not only works as a winter seasonal … Read More