A beer left in a shop window under the lights can pick up a strange taste before it's even opened. Here's what each container really protects, and how to check it yourself in three seconds.
Let me say it straight away: I never hesitated. When I started the brewery, I knew I wanted to package in cans, for the craft feel and because that's where the trade is heading, for solid physical reasons. That takes nothing away from the bottle, which stays unbeatable on other fronts. Here's what damages a beer, and what each container changes.
Hops contain fragile molecules. When light hits them, they break apart and the pieces recombine into a molecule that smells terrible. And here's the almost-joke: you land in the same family of molecules as what a skunk sprays to defend itself. It's not a metaphor, it's the same chemistry. Brewers call it lightstruck.
Clear glass filters nothing, green almost nothing, brown stops the bulk of it. A can blocks everything. But a brown bottle stored in a box, at the back of a storeroom, takes on nothing either: the real culprit is exposure, not the format.
At your bottle shop, spot the clear or green bottles sitting under the lights or in the window. They've already caught the light. Grab the same beer from the back of the pile.
The second factor is oxygen. It ages beer the way it browns a slice of apple left on the table: the fruity aromas from the hops fade first, then it drifts towards wet cardboard. Nothing dangerous, just less good.
Both formats seal very well: a modern crown cap holds perfectly for months, a can is seamed shut in one piece and doesn't budge. The can gets the edge just before sealing, because less air is trapped under the lid than in the neck of a bottle, so less oxygen to gnaw at the aromas in the months that follow. On a very hoppy beer, you can taste it in the glass.
The reflex when buying: the date is printed under the can or on the shoulder of the bottle. On a hoppy one, aim for under three months in a bottle. Beyond that you're still drinking something good, but no longer what the brewer had in mind.
'Cans give a metallic taste.' It's the line I hear most, and everyone repeats it without really checking. Yet the inside is lined with a food-grade lacquer: the beer never touches the aluminium. What you pick up is the rim against your lips and your nose against the lid while you drink. The same thing happens at the mouth of a bottle, just less noticeably.
I'm the first to drink straight from the can in my garden, so I won't lecture. But try it once: two sips, one from the container, one from a glass. Same beer, two impressions.
The bottle has things going for it, and not small ones. It reseals roughly, it comes in big sharing formats, it handles refermentation and ageing over several years, which is still the territory of strong and sour beers. On the environmental side, cans recycle very well but it's still recycling, whereas a returnable bottle is reused as is, which is even better where the network exists.
On a hoppy beer meant to be drunk young, the order flips: it's the can that best holds the hop aromas over time. Provided you store it well once it's home.
Light, oxygen, ageing. The container matters less than how it was filled and where it was stored: two things you can guess by looking at the display and the date. The rest is a matter of taste and use.
With us it's cans, out of conviction, and that doesn't stop us opening very good bottles. Ours are in the shop.
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