Aluminium can shortage may amplify expenses for North Texas breweries

The epidemic has wreaked havoc on a variety of industries, including aluminium cans. Due to supply chain issues, aluminium cans are in short supply. As a result, the prices of canned beer in local breweries could go up. For brewers, it's just another stumbling block on the road back to life before the COVID epidemic.

“Over the last 2 years it’s been extremely difficult to actually have any kind of consistency. Supply chains have been stressed and at times we were not able to get anything. The aluminum manufacturers just can’t keep up. Since COVID happened everyone shifted to packaged goods so not just the beer industry, it’s also the soda industry, juice industry everyone is selling more to-go products than they were pre-COVID,” said Jon Powell, Owner and Brewer of Hop and Sting Brewing Company in Grapevine.

A similar problem exists at Bedford's Turning Point Brewery. They've had to go outside the box, and instead of buying more aluminium cans, they've purchased additional kegs.

“That kind of helps alleviate the issue of getting cans brought in because we’re putting them in kegs. We did have to purchase more kegs and that’s stainless steel, those prices have gone up too,” commented James Peery, Co-founder of Turning Point Brewery.

The breweries told CBS 11 that the price of aluminium has doubled or even quadrupled in recent weeks, but that they will bear the expense and not pass it on to customers for the time being.

“Bumping up prices isn’t necessarily going to be very good right now because consider people are budgeting and beer is a commodity,” added Peery.

These brewers have a difficult option since they will strive to balance the books while profit margins are slim.

“It will obviously affect the bottom line of our businesses especially we’re not in a position to raise our prices. With all the price increases that are going on in the world today we want to make sure we are able to keep our beer affordable,” added Powell.