Canning in the ‘Kan
Abbie (front) and Amanda Speer-Mead can homebrewed beer using their portable line at last year's Spo-Can festival at the Elk Public House. (Charlene Honcik photo)
Spokes Mobile Canning will be working closer to home than usual this weekend.
For a second year, Abbie and Amanda Speer-Mead will can beer for homebrewers using their portable line as part of the Spo-Can festival at the Elk Public House on Saturday.
The fifth annual event, from noon to 6 on the Elk patio, will feature more than 50 canned craft beers and ciders, along with DJ music. General manager Marshall Powell says it was scaled back to a single day this year to focus on the live canning, now that canned commercial craft beer is less of a novelty.
“We’re trying to spin it more into that, to be more of the community education piece that we were trying to do to begin with,” he says.
The Speer-Meads, who canned beer for six homebrewers using their portable line last year, expect it to be busier this year as word spreads.
“It happens in conjunction with ArtFest, and we’re right on the sidewalk, so last year there were people walking by saying, ‘Oh, what are they doing?’ ” Abbie says.
“It’s a way to educate people on how beer gets canned, they get to see the process, and also a chance for homebrewers to get their beer canned. Where else are they going to do that?”
While cans traditionally were associated with mass-market macrobrews, craft brewers have come to appreciate their advantages. Cans seal tighter and block light to preserve beer quality, are lighter and sturdier than breakable bottles for packing on the go, cost brewers less to ship and are more easily recycled.
“The debate is over whether it’s better (than bottles) or not,” Powell said. “It’s better packaging all around, for so many reasons.”
Abbie Speer-Mead says she knew cans were here to stay when more exotic styles started showing up in them. “You’re seeing goses in cans, you’re seeing tripels in cans, things that aren’t typically your easy-drinking beers that you would take to the golf course or a ballgame,” she says.
Cans’ share of the craft market grew from 2 to 10 percent between 2011 and 2014, according to the Brewers Association, and craft can sales were up 56 percent in 2015, Craft Brewing Business reports.
But the trend has been slower to catch on in the Inland Northwest. While several Spokane/Coeur d’Alene-area breweries have begun bottling on at least a limited basis, Orlison is the only one to regularly can its beers, on its own in-house line. No-Li uses Orlison’s facilities to brew and can two of its IPAs, Born & Raised and the new Big Juicy.
The cans have been living up to expectations, and haven’t cut into sales of No-Li’s 12- and 22-ounce bottles, owner John Bryant says.
“It’s a great opportunity to reach new customers,” Bryant says. “It’s fun to have the different formats. I find myself going back and forth.”
However, he adds, “Washington, and specifically Spokane, is still predominantly a bottle-oriented market.”
Iron Goat, which began bottling in February 2015, will consider canning when its production volume grows enough to accommodate it, co-owner/brewer Greg Brandt says. “It’s something we really want to do at some point,” he says.
But looking at the price per ounce, he says, “You make more money in 22-ounce bottles than you would in cans.” And it’s easier to get shelf space for them in stores, in large part because they simply take up less room.
Because of that, says Amanda Speer-Mead, “We’ve had breweries who really want to get into cans, and their distributor pressures them out of it. That’s frustrating for us.”
Spokes got its start in 2014 canning for two breweries in Great Falls, where cans are a natural for Montana’s outdoor lifestyle. Yakima Craft was another early customer and has been joined by Leavenworth’s Icicle Brewing and more recently Wallace Brewing, as well as three Eastern Washington cideries: Spokane’s One Tree, Pullman’s Whiskey Barrel and Chelan’s Washington Gold. (The minimum order is 3,000 12-ounce cans, enough for an eight-barrel batch.)
They hope to build more business closer to home as local breweries grow and become more adventurous, Abbie Speer-Mead says.
“I think there is a more conservative aspect to growth in our region in general,” she says. “That’s not a bad thing, they’re just not as willing to jump the gun on that type of opportunity.”
Spokes is looking at adding a 22-ounce bottling line to broaden its appeal, Amanda adds.
“A place like Iron Goat, they’re always going to have something great to put it in 22s, like the barrel-aged Scotch,” she says. “But let’s put the Head Butt, let’s put the Blonde, let’s put the ISA in cans. It’s better for the environment, it’s better cost-wise for you and for us. It’s a better vessel.”