Portland craft brewers concern more over aluminium can shortage than aluminium tariffs

Portland craft brewers are facing a tight supply of cans along with the problem related to aluminium tariffs.

Paul Lorrain of Funky Bow Brewery & Beer Co. in Lyman said his company has had difficulty procuring 16-ounce cans and had to shut down beer production twice in 2018. According to Lorrain it’s easy to blame the shortage on a 10 per cent tariff on imported aluminium, but the problem has been brewing for two years as large beverage companies have consumed more cans than the volume produced. 

“When you can’t move beer out of kegs into cans, it messes up the brewery schedule,” he said.

“A combination of factors is impacting many of our brewers’ ability to get cans,” spokesman Sean Sullivan said.

Over the last decade, more and more brewers are now using cans instead of bottles. Aluminum has replaced glass at breweries large and small. The brewer considers tariffs as only a part of the problem.

“The consolidation of vendors, to aluminum prices and tariffs, to logistics … is leading to back orders and difficulties for brewers big and small,” he said.

Baxter brewing in Lewiston was founded in 2010 and never bottled its beers, while older breweries, including Allagash in Portland have started selling beer in aluminium cans. Lorrain said that Ball Canning and Crown Cork & Seal are the major supplier of cans,. But the larger beverage companies have set up long-term contracts for beer and soft drinks, which gives the canners the ability to schedule longer production runs without the need to shut down production. They earn profit but smaller brewers who need smaller volume are facing problems.

Sullivan said “smaller brewers unable to convince a vendor to sell less than a full truckload of cans.” According to them, lead times for getting cans are growing from a few weeks to maybe months.

As said by another brewer on the shift to aluminium, “All the cool kids are doing it in cans now.”

Wineries and distilleries are using more aluminium cans, and advances in labelling and mobile canning companies like Iron Heart have lowered barriers to using cans instead of bottles. Brewers are not optimistic about an end to the shortage in the medium term.