Beer Can Celerbrates 75th Birthday

I was reading over at Packaging Digest this morning and was thrilled to learn that everybody's favourite beer container - the can is celebrating it's 75th birthday this month. That's right, January 2010 marks the 75th Anniversary of the commercial use of cans for packaging beer.
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Over it's life the humble beer can has undergone a few changes. It was the 1920's when brewers first started to consider cans as opposed to bottles. It made sense, they are lighter, cheaper and impenetrable to light resulting in increased beer stability. It was all looking rosy when Prohibition and a few technical glitches such as the high temperature/pressure of pasteurisation causing the packaging to fail, and also the development of a lining to reduce metal turbidity.
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The beer can made it's commercial debut in January 1934, when Gottfried Krueger Brewing, New Jersey, packaged their best beer and cream ales in 'Vinylite' cans for 'long distance' transport to Richmond, Vermont for sale. Strangely sales went up by over 500% in the following 3 months. This kick started a packaging revolution that Anheuser-Busch and others joined.
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From a marketing perspectives cans shit all over bottles. They have a larger printable surface area, so it's easier to get your brand and message across and attract attention to your product at the point of sale. They can also be stacked neatly to form a huge branded wall.
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The canning technology has come a long way since those first 'Vinylite' cans. Aluminium with water based coatings are now the norm and there are a number of ways to open the vessel from pull-tops, to pop-tops and twist off closures which make cans easier and safer to open. It will be interesting to see where the technology progresses to in the face of stiff competition from the new wave of plastic bottles which are now available. Only time will tell, but I'm willing to bet the can will still be around in 75 years time.