Totally canned: aluminum-sided options for good beer
A solid line-up
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When the sun is beating down on your baseball hat, grabbing a cold one out of the ice water in a cooler is a wonderful thing. Heavy, awkward bottles aren’t always right for outdoors summer fun—sometimes dealing with shatter-happy glass and bottle openers runs counter to freewheelin’ hot fun in the summertime—but most beer in cans barely deserve the name. Yes, it’s a world of extremely light lagers that smell like pond water and taste like piss even if pounded immediately at temperature just above freezing. The A.V. Club set out to find some local beer in cans that doesn’t suck like that. This is Wisconsin, after all, not fucking Missouri.
Dave’s BrewFarm
Not only is this brewery solar powered, geothermal, and eco-friendly in almost every way, Dave makes a smooth, light brew with faint sweet notes of maple syrup that’s perfect for a picnic or a ball game. This Steven’s Point all-malt lager is hopped with Cluster and Perle. BrewFarm is a one-way ticket to a mental Wisconsin idyll, and the green-ness of the enterprise is a great rationalization for buying more.
Simpler Times
Only $3 for a sixer at Trader Joe’s, this stuff will mess you up. The branding is a triumph in summoning the nostalgia of high summers spent in mild mischief, and the beer actually tastes pretty good for that price: a hoppy, slightly sweet lager with a full body and faintly citrus nose. Whether floating on a boat or playing touch football, the incredible 6.2-percent ABV wallop of booze—the pilsner packs a slightly lesser punch at 5.5—makes this Monroe, Wisconsin beer a solid alternative to Miller Lite.
Floppin’ Crappie
For a float down the Milwaukee River in a canoe with fishing tackle and goofy hats, a six-pack of Floppin’ Crappie cannot be bested. This mellow, light, low-carbonation red ale from Northwoods Brewing Corp. in Eau Claire, Wisconsin comes in a can with nautically themed art design sporting silhouettes of fishermen casting lines to the namesake fish, rendered in loving detail. The wheat-tinged, toasted malt flavors combine for a beer that goes down like a homesick mole and brings a relaxing euphoria to any event, especially the ones where you aren’t supposed to have booze, like 10 a.m. little league games.
