beer

Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). It is written by Garrett Cruce, a Certified Beer Server in the Cicerone Certification Program.

Is there a sound of summer more satisfying than the crack of opening an aluminum can? In one percussive moment, it conjures memories of picnics, grilling or cooling off after mowing the lawn. It’s the container that requires no opener other than your own fingers.

Since 1933, when the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company began shipping their Krueger’s Finest Beer in cans, beer drinking just hasn’t been the same. Of course, those cans required a churchkey to punch holes in the top for drinking, but they heralded a new delivery system for beer.

Though consumers might still associate beer cans with mass-produced, light lagers, there has been a real craft beer movement brewing around the aluminum can.

Oskar Blues Brewery started the trend in 2002 with Dale’s Pale Ale, committing to be a bottle-free brewery. According to craftcans.com Cantastic Database of Canned Craft Beer, there are approximately 508 breweries canning beer in the United States today.

Aluminum has numerous benefits that make it a more attractive container for beer than glass. It effectively blocks out harmful light and air — the seal on a can is tighter than that of a bottle cap. Cans are lightweight and less costly to recycle than glass. And, the durability of aluminum means that breweries lose less beer to breakage in shipping. Not to mention that the can is immensely portable for the beer drinker, too.

Here are several tasty brews that just happen to come in a can:

Oskar Blues Brewery Pinner Throwback IPA (4.9 percent ABV)

This session IPA has “throwback” in its name because it’s so easy to throw them back. It’s a cute joke for a serious beer. The aroma is piney followed by a citrus tang. Grapefruit dominates the flavor. The bitter citrus flavor is so big, that it’s easy to forget that there isn’t much alcohol. This is a delicious and refreshing IPA that doesn’t knock you out. It’s great for an afternoon outside.

21st Amendment Brewery Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer (4.9 percent ABV)

Brewed by the brewery named for the Constitutional amendment that repeal prohibition, Hell or High Watermelon is rather standard — albeit fruity — American wheat.

21st Amendment is better known for it hoppy beers than for malty ones, but they have made a perennial favorite for many craft beer drinkers. This beer starts out as a typical American wheat beer then goes through a secondary fermentation with fresh watermelon. The finished product is a beer that both smells and tastes almost entirely of watermelon. It’s refreshing beer on a hot day and goes well with just about any grilled food. You should be able to find this until late summer.

Maui Brewing Co. Coconut Porter (6.0 percent ABV)

Maui’s Coconut Porter is a favorite of their line-up — the Washington Post named it the champion of Beer Madness 2012. Though it’s the darkest of the beers here, the fact that it’s a porter makes a great choice for a summer cookout.

The aroma is mineral with toast and cocoa, betraying just a hint of the toasted coconut used in the brewing. Chocolate and the bittering of the toasted malt is all over the flavor — I got little of the coconut in the flavor. Regardless, at 6 percent this beer is still going to go down easy with a big flavor that pleases.

Brothers Craft Brewing Drift Session Ale (5.0 percent ABV)

The can that I had was still labeled with their old brewery name: 3 Brothers Brewing Co. After a legal dispute left them with the choice of limiting their distribution to Virginia only or changing their name, they chose change.

Drift falls rightly into a category they created called Weekender beers. I have just one word for this delicious beer — pine. It’s in the aroma and flavor, and it’s what makes this beer a great find. Out of Harrisonburg, Va., Brothers Brewing Co. is only distributing within the state. But, as their name change implies, they aren’t interested in limiting themselves.

I didn’t mention all the great Virginia breweries that use some or all cans, nor most of the other U.S. breweries that do. What is your favorite can of beer? Cheers!

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). It is written by Garrett Cruce, a Certified Beer Server in the Cicerone Certification Program.

Full disclosure: I have not been a fan of sours in the past. I took on this little challenge as an opportunity to broaden my palate. It worked, sort of.

I tasted four sours: two European and two American. Like with IPAs, American craft breweries have gone to extremes with sours. Where the two Flemish sours that I tried mixed the sweet, maltiness of brown ales with a fruity tang, the American sours were all sour.

Traditionally, sour beers like Flanders reds, oud bruins and Berlinner Weisse were aged in vertical wood barrels, called foeders, where the beer interacted with so-called acidifying bacteria — like lactobacillus — resulting in a souring of the beer. This was desired. European breweries blend aged sour beer or lambics — “wild” beers that use a combination of wild yeast and bacteria for their sourness — with young beer. The result is a beer that still has many of the flavors of a brown or red ale, but with a lactic sourness.

According to The Oxford Companion to Beer, American craft breweries are forging new roads into the world of sours. Dubbed “new world” sours, these beers are as varied as the ingredients that are used in them. One of the beers in this column is inspired by the “old world” sours, but it lacks any of the subtleness of them. The other American sour here uses blood oranges to bring a big citrus tang to an otherwise “old world” style, the gose.

Anderson Valley Brewing Company Blood Orange Gose (4.2 percent ABV)
This is the gose — a wheat beer brewed with salt and coriander. The sourness comes from the addition of lactobacillus and a large number of blood oranges. In the glass, the aroma is reminiscent of sodium bicarbonate — a flat, Alka-Selzer-like scent — with just a hint of bitter orange. The flavor is nearly all sour! You get a big citrusy sourness from the oranges, which tapers off to a lightly sweet biscuit flavor in the finish. This is a refreshing, sessionable beer that will be perfect in the heat of a summer day.

New Belgium Brewing Company La Folie 2015 (7 percent ABV)
This beer makes claims to the long lineage of European sours — Flanders reds and oud bruins. It’s made using a blend of aged sour beers that New Belgium is nurturing. Starting out as lagers, the component beers sour over time in wood foeders. Each one has a different character so that when they are blended you get this complex sour beer. The aroma is tart plum with a hint of the sodium bicarbonate. In the mouth, it’s entirely plum and other dark stone fruit with little to no sweetness, lightened by an effervescent carbonation. This is a strong, funky beer. Alex from Dominion Wine & Beer suggests letting this one age before opening it.

BROUWERIJ ALVINNE Omega Sour Blond Ale (6 percent ABV)
Omega is a Flemish sour beer that uses a blond ale instead of the traditional brown ale in the blend. Alvinne bills itself as a craft brewery in Belgium and it shows in its varied line up of beers. This beer has a fantastic winey and biscuity aroma that hints at the complexity of the flavor. There’s no doubt that this is a sour from the first sip. Starting out strong, the sourness mellows to become fruity right before the sweetness of the malt kicks in. I found the journey from sour to almost sweet made this beer really stand out.

Vanderghinste Brewery Oud Bruin (5.5 percent ABV)
This Flemish brown ale is a sour is made in the Flanders tradition. Originally called “Ouden Tripel,” Vanderghinste gave Oud Bruin a makeover, including a rename, and found success. Oud Bruin is a brown ale that is blended with an oak-aged lambic to create the Flemish sour brown ale. The aroma is of prune and cinnamon apple. The flavor derives from the lambic and from the yeast — tart stone fruit that sweetens in the finish. This traditional sour was actually the least sour of the group. I enjoyed it immensely as a drinkable sour ale. This approachability and the trend toward sours has made the demand for Vanderghinste’s Oud Bruin so great that the brewery has announced plans to expand.

What are you drinking? Cheers!

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.