Lexington’s West Sixth Brewery to be first Kentucky craft brewery to can its beer

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 13, 2012) — West Sixth Brewery announced this week that it will be the first craft brewery in Kentucky to can its beer.

Soon after West Sixth opens this spring in downtown Lexington, it will be the first craft brewery to do this. When the founders began West Sixth, they made a few commitments as a brewery:

• Make delicious and creative local craft beer.

• Be dedicated to the community that we live in.

• Will place a premium on being good to the planet we live on.

According to West Sixth, the decision to can its beer was simple.

“And, we summarized it on the label you can see beside this post – “Why a can? Better for the beer. Better for the planet. Better on the go.” What do we mean by that? First, cans will keep craft beer fresher longer. The two most damaging things that can make a craft beer taste bad are light and air. It’s obvious to see, then, why craft beer will keep longer in a can – the can doesn’t allow any light through and the seal is much tighter than the seal of a bottle. And, unlike canned beer of the past, today’s cans are lined with a water-based coating, so that the beer and metal never touch each other, and there is never an off flavor generated. Second, cans are a better for the environment. Shipping cans uses less fossil fuels because it weighs a lot less than glass. Aluminum is easier to recycle than glass, and requires less packaging. And, did you know that nationwide, 75% of glass ends up in landfills?

Nationwide, 57% of aluminum cans are recycled. And finally, cans are extremely portable – they can go lots of places bottles just can’t go as easily – on a boat at the lake, in your backpack when you’re hiking, or while you’re playing golf or bike polo! There are lots of challenges to cans for sure – the packaging line is a lot more complicated than a bottling line, and because there’s only a few can manufacturing plants in the U.S., the minimum order of empty cans is almost 100,000! But, we’re confident that with the advantages described above, we made the right choice.”