Small Beer, the London brewery that specialises in producing lower alcohol beers, has launched three of its core brews into 330ml aluminium cans.
As the first brewery in London to achieve B Corp certification, the company believes there are now more environmental reasons to start packaging its beers in cans as well as bottles.
“Today’s bottle and can filling technologies mean that both offer exceptional quality and each lends itself better to certain occasions,” said brewery co-founder Felix James. “Between production and consumption, cans are more environmentally friendly than bottles on virtually every front.
“Cans are significantly lighter than bottles, they hold more volume, and they stack neatly in slabs for efficient transport. As cans are also flexible rather than brittle, they are far less likely to be damaged in transit than bottles, which helps to reduce wastage in a modern ecommerce sales environment.”
Small Beer Lager, Session Pale, and IPA are all now available to buy online in cans, while the company will continue to bottle and keg all five of its core beers.
Founded in 2017, Small Beer is the world’s first brewery to focus exclusively on brewing lower-alcohol beers that are between 0.5 and 2.8% in strength. The brewery has become widely recognised by its stylish short-neck 350ml bottles, which have a smaller carbon footprint than traditional long-neck beer bottles.
James said: “Despite holding more beer than a typical 330ml long neck bottle, our Small Beer bottles are 20% lighter and their shorter necks allow for 40% more beer to fit on a pallet, further reducing our carbon footprint with each delivery versus other beers.”
James believes that Small Beer’s uniquely shaped bottles are still a greener alternative to cans, as the worldwide shift away from plastics has created a sudden demand for aluminium, which in turn has led to an increase in high-impact mining.
“As the UK recycling rate continues to improve and the growth in aluminium demand settles, we’ll hopefully reach a stage when recycled aluminium stock outweighs demand, at which point the argument will likely swing towards Small Beer cans,” he said.
