Fat Tire in a can? WTF?

Yes, it’s true.  New Belgium Brewery is working on canning it’s flagship beer- Fat Tire. 

The wife and I took a trip to Ft. Collins, CO for our anniversary this weekend.  We wasted no time getting down to business.  First stop when we hit town was the New Belgium Brewery Tour.  More on that later.  What’s important here is what we learned at the end.

The tour ended with a view into a vast concrete room.  A space soon to be devoted to the new canning line.  Not a bottling line- a canning line.  Your beloved Amber Ale will soon be hitting a cooler near you with a new squat but sportier look. 

Many reasons were given as to why.  Cans are easier and cheaper to ship.  They take up less space and are easier to recycle.  They are fun to smash- I would argue that it’s more fun to smash a bottle, but the aftermath of a crushed can is safer and easier to deal with.  Cans also have the obvious camping benefits, as they are much lighter and easier to pack out than bottles.  For me, the biggest advantage the can has over the bottle, is its ability to float.  This is key- as anyone who has been on the receiving end of a shore to water ‘beer me’  Hail Mary pass can attest.

So with all it’s benefits, what’s wrong with cans?  Surely there are good canned beers out there- Guiness, Boddingtons and Dale’s Pale Ale to name a few.   But generally, when you think of canned beer, you think of dooky beer like Natural Ice, Miller High Life and Keystone light.  It’s a stigma that may be hard to overcome for a craft brewer.  

On a more technical level- Fat Tire is a bottle conditioned beer.  Meaning it’s last fermenting stage, when the yeast chows on the sugar- farting carbonation and pissing alcohol, is done in the bottle.  From what I gathered, the good people at New Belgium are still working out the kinks of can conditioning. 

So maybe Fat Tire in a can won’t be so bad after all.  There really are some potential benefits.  What it really comes down to is taste.  Will the canned version hold up to the bottle? Only time will tell.  Until then- I’ll be “hit’n the bottle” since ”hit’n the can” has a whole different meaning all together.