"Crowlers” or large size aluminium cans boosting brewery business while they are hit by tariffs

Craft breweries are buying aluminium cans which are 2.5 times larger than the size of a normal beer can because it is helping out their business at a time when cans are scarce.

“As soon as we got this machine, our off premise beer sales doubled,” said Willy Truettner, co-owner of Zuni Street Brewing in Denver’s Highlands Neighborhood.

According to reports, “Crowlers” are the new 32oz aluminium cans which brewers are now investing in heavily. The cans are cost-effective and helping the breweries sale out beer to new customers faster.

Colorado has hundreds of small scale breweries that are feeling the heat due to non-availability of cans. The larger cans are serving as a lifeline to small neighbourhood brewers. They spend most of their marketing costs on bringing more customers to the brewery.

“What better way to get our name out than someone who shows up to a party with 8 of these things with all of our different beers in them for people to try?” asks Truettner.

The business growth in these small breweries is in jeopardy due to aluminium tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration. Despite the negotiations between the two countries, the U.S. is still sticking 10 per cent tariffs on Canadian aluminium.

Brewers are concerned that if the can price goes up it will have an impact on their business.

“If the actual vessel goes up, than certainly it will affect our business,” says Truettner. “We would see an increase and that would eventually pass onto the customer.”

Canada has already cancelled a competing tariff on American aluminium as part of the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that will replace NAFTA. Brewers expect to have a steady market once trade disruptions come to normal.