For the first time, Washington craft beer available in cans

Originally Published on April 19, 2010 – pictured above, Mike and Travis of 7 Seas Brewing — Two very important things happened this past weekend. At first glance, they may not seem related in any way; however, beer cans and beach cleanup go together just like hops and barley.

First of all, this past weekend, 7 Seas Brewing became the first Washington craft brewery to provide their product in cans. (Read our previous post about 7 Seas’ plans to can.) At their brewery and taproom in Gig Harbor, 7 Seas celebrated with a release party on Saturday–live music, barbecued food and canned beer. You will start seeing 7 Seas cans in retail outlets soon. If you don’t, ask for it.

Also this past weekend, the annual Washington Coast Cleanup took place on beaches up and down the Washington coast. From Ilwaco to Cape Flattery, from Ocean Shores to Kalaloch, volunteers kicked their way through grassy dunes, navigated driftwood mazes, and scoured the tide lines picking up tons and tons of trash. For Mr. and Mrs. Beerblog, Washington Coast Cleanup means an annual camping trip to the ocean with good friends and good beer.

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While we were not able to hang out for the 7 Seas soirée on Saturday, we did have the opportunity to stop in and pick up some beer on our way to the beach.

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Camp, climb, paddle, pedal, drink

What kind of correlation am I drawing between canned beer and beach cleanup? Well, I don’t want to start proselytizing, so I won’t talk about the ecological virtues of aluminum cans. One thing that nobody can dispute is that aluminum cans work really well for camping. They quickly chill when you throw them into the cooler. In fact, you can actually throw them into the cooler because they don’t shatter. They are lighter to pack in and pack out. Whether you camp, climb, paddle, pedal, or hike, aluminum cans make life easier.

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In addition to beautifully packaged 16 oz. cans of the 7 Seas Ballz Deep Double IPA and British Pale Ale, we picked up growlers of the same two beers. We know that there are a lot of people who insist they taste the aluminum when drinking beer from a can, so we conducted our own blind taste tests. If you are one of those people, I challenge you to do the same. While our three tasters recognized a difference in carbonation, they could not identify any difference in taste. The difference in carbonation isn’t surprising—growler versus can. Any difference in the two samples was so minor you could not have reasonably said that one was better than the other. Neither tasted at all like metal.

Getting it in the can, at last

We really enjoyed taking cans of craft beer camping at the ocean with us. It made us happy when we opened that first can. At long last, local craft beer is available in aluminum cans.

We want to extend our congratulations to Travis Guterson and Mike Runion at 7 Seas Brewing. Opening the brewery and canning their beer was a longtime dream of theirs and it has now come true. Cheers, boys!

You can see pictures from the 7 Seas Can Release Party on their Facebook page.

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