There are many factors to consider when deciding whether to put beer, especially craft beer, into a can. They might include the willingness of the market to embrace such a product, how a beer will present inside a can rather than bottle or keg and so on. In the case of the about-to-be-released Mountain Goat Summer Ale, we reckon it came down to one simple factor, however: the desire of their staff to drink their own beer at Meredith.
Whether our suspicions are correct (and we accept there may have been other considerations), when Meredith 23 rolls around this December, we’re pretty sure there will be plenty of cans of Summer doing the rounds. The beer, which is based on previous draught-only summer releases such as Skipping Girl and Goldilocks (although far closer to the former as far as we can tell), is launched at the brewery this Friday (along with fried chicken from Rockwell & Sons) and should start appearing on the shelves of bottleshops from next week. There’s around 5,500 cases heading nationwide, so finding one shouldn’t be too tricky.
According to Goat co-founder Cam Hines, they first looked into releasing beer in a can “about two and a half years ago.” Having finally decided to go for it, they spent several months working with the team at Independent Distillers, which makes their 330ml Steam, Hightail and IPA, to capture just what they wanted: something highly hoppy, highly refreshing and low in bitterness.
“We weren’t sure that we could do it as when you do a new product, you have to do lots otherwise it costs the earth,” says Cam. “We weren’t sure how well it would be received two years ago and whether we’d be able to shift it within its shelf life. But over the past two years we figured we just had to do it.”
In that time, the Australian Brewery in New South Wales became the first Aussie microbrewery to install its own canning line and a second Victorian brewery aims to have cans available by the end of the year too. With more quality canned beers arriving from overseas, such as Brooklyn Lager, proving popular and much more chatter in beer circles about the pros and cons of craft beer in cans, it is indeed a slightly altered landscape from two years ago.
“We’ve always loved the concept,” says Cam. “[US beer] Dale’s Pale has been in cans forever it seems and we always loved the idea.”
For now, they only plan on the one can and will monitor uptake to see whether to embark on another run this summer or hold off until next. As for our festival theory? Well, expect to see a fair amount of Summer Ale land at those inner Melbourne bottleshops that make large orders of cans pre-music festival season and, well…
“That is partly where this has come from,” says Cam. “Our staff go to Meredith and Golden Plains and always say we’ve got to have a can at one of these.”
And now they have.
Mountain Goat Summer Ale, 4.7%
Packaged inside sleek, golden cans that look like the sun rising from a goat head on the horizon, the Summer Ale is tagged as “a clean, dry, aromatic ale with a blend of Aussie and Kiwi new world hops.” And there’s little doubt once the top is popped that there are plenty of fruity, tropical hops in there. Plenty. Perhaps the most noticeable aspect is just how dry it is, however, thanks to what we understand is pretty liberal use of malted and unmalted wheat. Almost as noticeable is the barely perceptible bitterness; clearly, the vast majority of the hops didn’t meet the beer until late on.
So, it’s fruity, is refreshing, it’s dry and it’s sessionable. And it’s in a can. As the can says: “Roll on summer.”
