Australian Brewery has launched the Pilsner and Pale Ale beer in a can.
The brewery is taking a different approach to packaging the high end beer by canning it for both quality and environmental purposes.
Head brewer at Australian Brewery, Neal Cameron said in terms of quality there are two killers of beer flavour and aroma: oxygen and oxidisation, and light, where UV breaks down hop aroma chemicals.
“Cans clearly keep out 100 per cent of light so there’s a huge benefit straight away. Brown bottles still let around 30 per cent of light through, green 50 per cent and clear bottles almost all of it, which perhaps offers some indications of what kind of quality beer you generally get in the clear bottles,” he said.
Cameron also explained it is essential that minimum oxygen gets into the beer while it is being packaged. Cans are filled from the very bottom of the can, after filling it with oxygen. Therefore oxygen levels are insignificant.
There are also environmental benefits, with the can weighing less than a bottle. It uses 42 per cent less packaging by weight and takes up 40 per cent less volume when cased up.
Cameron added canning makes more business sense.
“The canning lines are simpler and have a much smaller footprint than most bottling lines. Therefore our capital and space can be used for other things rather than being tied up in a bottling line,” he said.
The Pilsner is inspired by the bitter pilsners of Germany and is a mixture of spicy New Zealand hops and citrus American hops. The Pale Ale is a cloudy beer with Australian Galaxy hops: a mixture of citrus and passionfruit flavours.
The Pilsner and Pale Ale are available in Dan Murphy stores nationally.
