Exploring the origins of canned beer
Cone top beer cans
Roberto Baroni, sales manager at Imeta, provides an overview on the history of beer canning, from its origins until the mid-twentieth century
Images sourced by Roberto Baroni
Despite the dedication of highly motivated populations, with the Czechs still firmly in first place, beer continues to be preceded by water and tea in global beverage consumption.
Thought to be discovered by mistake by an Egyptian around 7,000 years ago, beer – together with bread – is believed to be one of the reasons that man became sedentary. Even today we can still observe countless sedentary homo sapiens standing at bar counters in front of plentiful mugs of beer.
Initially, the ‘liquid bread’ was stored and transported in amphorae and terracotta vases, then in wooden barrels, glass bottles and finally in cans and steel drums.
In the United States, until the prohibition years of 1920 to 1933, beer was mainly consumed via taps in clubs and drunk in company, but the demand for takeaway containers for individual consumption soon became widespread.
The first experiments in canning beer were carried out as early as 1909 by the American Can Company of Greenwich, Connecticut, but produced poor results. In fact, the metal cans available in those years suffered from two main obstacles: firstly, they were not able to resist the strong internal pressure during pasteurisation, which was two to three times higher than that generated by the sterilisation of food products; and secondly, the available coatings could not withstand the strong corrosion of the internal walls when they came into contact with the amber nectar. Toward the end of the Prohibition era, the American Can Company resumed its experiments and finally created a newer, suitable metal container.
The problem of lateral weakness was solved in 1925 by Charles Stollberg, soldering each layer of metal in the fold of the lateral seam (at that time there were no electric welding machines that are used today); the related patent (right) No. 1,625,229 was assigned to CanCo in 1927.
To address the metal’s reaction to beer instead, the American Can Company adopted a keg-like combination of enamel and beer pitch, which it trademarked as ‘Keglined’ (left). The brand lasted for many years, even though the material itself was replaced by a synthetic vinyl (known as ‘vinylite’) before large-scale production.
Finally having a suitable container, CanCo decided to conduct the first tests with consumers: in 1933, 2,000 willing people tasted the first cans filled with a 3.2 per cent alcohol ‘Kruger’s Special Beer’ (the maximum allowed at the time), and gave their approval with a large majority.
Commercially, canned beer made its official debut on 24 January 1935, when the Gottfried Krueger Brewing company began selling Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale in Richmond, Virginia. Made in the classic three-piece size, with a diameter of 211 x 414 height, these metal cans were similar to those used for fruit juices or tomato juice. At the time, consumers knew cans mainly for storing food or mineral oil, so to identify their innovative contents, ‘BEER’ was written on the container often in larger font than the name of the manufacturer itself. To extract the 12oz of precious liquid from the flat top lid you needed a sturdy piercing tool, commonly called the ‘church key.’
The never-ending war between metal cans and glass bottles had just begun.
As was seen in an advertising image of the ‘Old Tankard ALE’ (right), the main advantages that were emphasised were: protected flavour – not allowing light to pass through, which has always been an enemy of beer conservation; non-refillable – the reuse of containers was perceived at the time as a possible factor of contamination and reduction in quality; stack easily and save half the space – resulting in space savings in the refrigerator and in transport; brewery goodness sealed right in – a feature that was not guaranteed to those who used to buy takeaway beer in pubs; no deposit and no bottles to save – back then, the possibility of throwing away the can was perceived as an advantage; and cool faster – an essential feature for large parties with many guests but a small refrigerator.
The innovative packaging was immediately adopted by many other breweries – so much so that, in the first year, over 200 million cans were produced and sold.
However, the three-piece can was not free from criticism. Many consumers, tied to the traditional glass bottle, did not like the shape of the new container, which made it more difficult to open and consume if they did not have a glass. Then, as today, drinking directly from a tin can was sometimes perceived negatively (in reality, this distaste mainly comes from the smell of the metal can – if the consumer’s nose is pressed against the lid – rather than the taste).
Even at an industrial level, there was opposition, especially from small and medium-sized breweries. To produce the new cans, it was necessary to equip themselves with new filling and seaming machines that involved a considerable outlay (a problem still reported by small craft breweries today).
Continental Can Company, increasingly more customer-oriented than its competitor, CanCo, designed a metal container that would also satisfy this segment of customers. In practice, the company produced cans with cone-shaped lids, which were closed by a crown cap, very similar to glass bottles or certain general line cans for thinners still produced today.
These cans were appreciated both by consumers, for the extreme ease of opening and consumption, and by small beer producers, that could exploit the same filling and closing line that they already used for glass bottles.
The disadvantages were the higher cost of the can, the impossibility of stacking them and the slower filling speed, due to the smaller hole. For these reasons, the three-piece, flat-top cans were more popular within larger production lines, and the cone-top bottle-shaped ones in small and medium- sized breweries.
National Can and the American Can Company began producing these cone-top cans that came in varied cone shapes: high profile, low profile, flat bottom inverted rib and J-spouts, as recorded in collectors’ archives.
Toward the end of 1935, on the other side of the Atlantic – in the United Kingdom – the Felinfoel Brewery began the first production of canned beer in Europe, using the more familiar cone-tops.
In just a few years, the tin can became incredibly popular and drove the growth of beer consumption. Nonetheless, it should be remembered that at the end of 1940, canned beer represented only ten per cent of US production.
The most original can was produced by Crown Cork & Seal toward the end of 1939 and was called ‘Crowntainer.’ It was composed of only two pieces: the body, produced by moulding and drawing, also included the upper cone and without lateral joints and the seamed bottom. The upper spout ended with the classic seat for the crown cover. The solution, probably due to the high costs, was not very successful. Immediately after the war, Crown Cork reused the technology for the production of aerosol cans named ‘Spra-Tainer.’
With the arrival of World War II, the domestic use of metals was restricted in accordance with War Production Board Order M-81 and the production of domestic beer cans stopped. The beer cans produced in those years were intended for shipment to troops and allies and easily identifiable by their characteristic olive drab colour, also known as camouflage cans.
When the war finally ended, we were able to freely join our fellow sedentary homo sapiens stationed at the bar counters. Cheers!
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