Cans can

I believe that bottles are superior to cans and I'm not alone. However there are great arguments to be made in favor of cans. Cans allow ZERO exposure to light, they are lighter, consume less space and recycle more easily. Some even claim that cans offer a better seal. All these arguments make sense and being a green weenie I can back cans on the environmental argument alone.

It's hard to find good beer in cans. There are some decent European imports that are available in four packs featuring pint sized cans. Most of these cans contain a nitrogen widget that replicates a pub pour. If I'm being honest I'm not a big fan of nitrogen. I don't mind hand pulled beers but for some reason the nitrogen seems to mute some of the flavor profiles. Unless I'm drinking a cask conditioned stout, I like some carbonation. Maybe that's just me.

Domestically speaking, crap comes in cans. Bud, Coors, Miller, Iron City, Schlitz, Pabst. Bleh. No thanks. I don't know if it's the crappy beer or the can but often when I drink out of cans, which is a rare occasion, I get the sense of something metallic in the beer. It's almost as if the acid in the hops picks up a tinny flavor from the can. Now this might be because there isn't enough body in the beer to protect the hops or maybe the beer is in the can too long. Perhaps all the rice and corn used by the mega "brewers" is to blame. I'm not an expert on the subject I just know that this is what I taste. I'm happy to blame the beer, but I don't find mega brews nearly as objectionable when they come from a bottle or a keg. As objectionable. Budweiser still makes me want to punch somebody.

Not too long ago, I tried some beer from a can that was pretty damned good. In fact it was excellent beer. It was from a little brewing company in the Twin Cities knows as Surly.

Surly Brewing Company offers a number of really nice beers. I was particularly pleased with Furious which is an aggressively hopped ale featuring Golden Promise malt, a popular malt found in a number of premium Scotch Whiskeys. The beer is what you would get if a Scottish Ale hooked up with an IPA and had a bastard love child. It's sweet, it's bitter and doesn't always play well with the other kids. Go ahead and laugh but don't try to follow a Furious with something lighter like a wheat beer. You won't taste it.

Surly also makes a refreshing session beer called Bender. This is truly a blend of several styles with influences coming from brown ales, porters and traditional pale ales. It's got a lot going on and you'll want more. Fortunately it's not too high in alcohol at 5% ABV so you can indulge.

When I was up in the area I managed to sample a limited release of Bitter Brewer. This is an English Bitter that is dry hopped for 14 days. The dry hopping gives it more edge than you'd expect out of a traditional English Bitter which really drives home the point of Surly. These people don't follow rules. They brew beer they like and let you have some. If you don't like it, they don't really care.

All of the Surly beers are offered in cans and the can doesn't seem to diminish the quality of the beer. Part of that is because these beers don't stay on the shelf for long and part of it is because Surly doesn't hold back on the flavor. A four pack of 16 ounce cans is going to set you back about what you'd pay for a 12 pack of domestic swill but you get what you pay for. I'm sure the guys at surly would be happy to piss in a few cans and cut you a deal. It might taste better than Bud too.

Does this mean everybody should use cans? I don't know. Surly's beers aren't being shipped across the country the way Sierra Nevada's beers are. Surly doesn't even have a regional market like Great Lakes, so maybe cans aren't out of the woods yet...but if you happen to get up to the twins, go ahead and snap one of these guys open. You won't be disappointed.