January 24th marks the Birthday of the beer can. What an evolutionary journey this type of container has taken to reach us today!

In 1909, Leopold Schmid, a recent German immigrant who had just opened the Olympia Brewery, wondered if it would be possible to can beer (at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, many food products were already sold in cans). He turned to the American Can Company (CANCO), the largest packaging company at the time, but they told him that canning beer was impossible – the cans weren’t strong or airtight enough. No technological innovations appeared in the next 10 years, and then Prohibition was introduced. However, CANCO continued to conduct research and in 1925 patented a prototype of a beer can made of tinplate with an enamel coating to protect against harmful substances entering the beer.

In 1933, Prohibition was repealed, and the Krueger’s brewery produced a test batch of 2000 cans of beer. They sent them to their regular customers, asking them to fill out a questionnaire. 91% of consumers liked the new packaging. On January 24, 1935, canned beer went on sale: residents of Richmond, Virginia, could buy Krueger’s Cream Ale.

In the first three months of sales, it turned out that Krueger’s, with its cans, had encroached on the positions of the three leaders of the beer market: Schlitz, Pabst, and Anheuser-Busch. Soon they also began canning beer, and by the end of 1935, 18 breweries in the United States had produced and sold 200 million cans of beer. Consumers liked that beer cans were easier to carry and store than bottles, and that there was no deposit on beer cans, unlike glass containers. The fact that a special knife was needed to open a beer can did not scare anyone away.

With the beginning of World War II, steel was needed for the army, but this was not a problem for breweries: the Ministry of Defense purchased huge batches of beer for shipment to the front. Cans for army supplies were made special – dull olive, with black drawings, so that they would not unmask the soldiers.

In 1958, aluminum cans appeared. The first brewery to can beer in aluminum was the Hawaiian brewery Primo. Steel cans continued to be used until 1984.

In 1963, another innovation appeared – cans could be opened without a key, using a ring (Schlitz was the first to release beer in such a can). But these valves detached completely from the can, unlike modern ones, so many beer lovers simply threw them on the ground. In the early 1970s, such cans were banned for environmental reasons, and by the early 1980s, modern cans appeared – opened with a ring that remains on the lid.

The beer can market is constantly innovating: for example, in 2013, Sly Fox Brewery introduced beer in cans with a lid that can be completely removed, allowing consumers to enjoy beer from a can as if from a glass.

So celebrate the Birthday of the beer can with friends with a can (or several) of your favorite drink!