Sun King to Release Seasonal and One-Off Beers in Customizable Cans

Never again, Beernews.org. NEVER AGAIN.


What you are looking at right now is the design for what we believe to be the first ever federally approved customizable craft beer can.

In this entirely professional interview, I contacted Sun King Brewer/Owner Clay Robinson to get the full details.

1) So as far as you know, this is the first customizable can? You can do whatever you want with it, canning whatever beer you want?

As far as we know, This will be the first ever, customizable can. Due to the limited production capabilities of our brewery, doing big runs of seasonal or specialty cans is out of the question considering the minimum order of any given style of can is 75,000 and that's a lot of cans! We have been searching for a way to release our high-end, small batch seasonal and specialty beers in a package that will preserve them better than a growler... We discussed borrowing Easley's champaign bottler to do 750 ml bottles, but at the end of the day we chose to can, not bottle, for a multitude of reasons therefore bottling seemed counterintuitive. With this new, customizable can we will be able to finally release beers from our Bourbon Barrel series that we have aging, plus beers like Tipping Point, Johan the Barleywine, or anything our little hearts' desire! Cans lock in freshness and flavor in a way that bottles can't, so these limited run beers should cellar well and be better in the long run. Essentially, we will be able to apply a label to the can, denoting it's contents and put whatever we want into it! The process will be a lot more labor intensive because we will have to adhere a label to each and every can before we run them through the canner, but we believe it will be worth it.

2) What is the first beer you plan to use the new cans for?

I'm not exactly sure what will be first, but there is a good chance that Tipping Point and Johan will be among the early releases, plus it gives us the option of canning some of our seasonal beers as well.

3) You'll customize and label the cans with stickers? Or...

We will customize with stickers, most likely clear stickers with the name and style of beer on them. We have left a space that will take a sticker up to 3" x 3"

4) Still seems kinda crazy that they're allowing you to put whatever you want in the can...

As long as the Can meets all Federal labeling requirements, we can put anything we brew into it.

5) Does this mean my Cream Dream can is dead? YOU BROKE MY HEART AGAIN. (Full disclosure: I did a mock up for a Cream Dream can for Sun King a few months ago.)

It does not mean your Cream Dream Can is dead! I am hoping that CD and its continual nature will call for it's own can in the next year or so...

6) What are you wearing. Type slowly.

S h o r t P a n t s w i t h a S u n K i n g B r e w e r ' s S h i r t