Category: Packaging
The Packaging Expert Topic takes a look at the many different aspects of packaging beverages including packaging equipment, proper service and maintenance, sanitation considerations, types of packaging systems, and more.
- Kegs 16
- Labels and Carriers 38
News TTB Proposes Mandatory Disclosures of Allergens and Alcohol Facts in Labeling
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has published two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs) that would require the disclosure of allergen as well as Alcohol Facts information on labels of alcohol beverages. Although the specifications were expected in some form, the proposed new requirements would be a major labelling change for alcohol beverages at a time when the industry is struggling with declining sales across all categories.
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Expert Topic Wood Aging, A Bit Faster
In the famed Cantillon Brewery in Brussels hangs a sign with a simple message: “Le temps ne respecte pas ce qui se fait sans lui.” This translates to “time does not respect what is done without it.” The message is a warning to brewers looking to short-circuit the process of making certain labor intensive types of beer, including barrel aged varieties.
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News Surgeon General Proposes Mandatory Cancer Risk Warning Labels on Alcohol
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has proposed that alcohol beverage containers should carry a warning label that alcohol is a leading cause of cancer. Murthy says in a report issued today that alcohol contributing to nearly 100,000 cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths each year.
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News Craft Beer Leads the Way in On-Premise Analysis
A detailed analysis of draft beer sales over a 12-month period through March of this year shows that draft beer handles are continuing to increase in the on-premise across the US despite a continued slowdown in overall on-premise beer sales.
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News BI Package Mix Report Shows Draft and Cans Rebounding
The Beer Institute released its updated Packaging Mix Report showing the distribution of beer volume by aluminum cans, glass bottles, and keg by state. The report shows that cans have made a gain in 2023 after showing a decline in 2022, and draft continues a slow upward trend since the pandemic.
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Sponsored Mitigate Risk of Package Failure with Head Space Management
Posted sponsored by QuantiPerm
Beverage packages, be it cans, bottles, kegs, or even tanks and totes can experience increasing internal pressures when the temperature warms up. While vendors have specifications on the maximum pressure they can withstand, it becomes the responsibility of the beverage manufacturer to ensure that once the package is filled, the internal pressures never rise above the maximum safe levels specified by the supplier for the maximum temperatures that the package experiences during its journey through the distribution chain. For pasteurized beverage products, the maximum temperature the beverage experiences is likely the pasteurization temperature.
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Expert Topic Considering Small Solutions for In-House Canning Lines
Mobile canning has been a boon for the craft beer industry. A good number of breweries have been able to grow and thrive by having outside companies come in with equipment to help move hazy IPA and more out the door. Even as those companies add more features to their equipment – including lines that can handle wild beers – some brewers are looking to add their own canning equipment.
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Expert Topic The Great Disappearing Bottle
Cans were the laughingstock of craft beer until they weren’t. Long gone are the days where beer cans signified cheapness or a lack of product quality. Once relegated to the world of flavorless, macro lager, cans now signal to consumers cool, fun, and engaging products. With the rise of canned craft beer, however, there is one obvious loser: the once ubiquitous bottle.
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Expert Topic Draft Monitoring: Avoiding Loss
There are few clearer examples of losing money than watching beer overflow a glass or pour freely from a tap and cascade down the drain. On average, ten to twenty percent of draft beer is lost at the tap, cutting substantially into profits and needlessly increasing costs. For many owners, it’s just a literal cost of doing business. And for many consumers it’s an all too familiar sight. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
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Expert Topic Adding Pizazz to Can Ends
It would be difficult to gauge how much thought end users think about can tops. Even with the proliferation over the last decade of cans in the craft beer space, not many drinkers give thought to how a can opens, so long as it opens properly.For brewers, there are options for these can ends that are not only functional but can add a certain aesthetic to a beer.
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News Beer Institute Say Aluminum Tariffs Have Cost the Beverage Industry $2.175 Billion
A research study conducted on behalf of the Beer Institute reveals that the American beverage industry has paid more than $2.175 billion in unnecessary fees due to aluminum tariffs that were implemented nearly six years ago. The study concluded that brewers all sizes pay a higher price for aluminum, whether the aluminum is sourced in the US or overseas.
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News Ball Corp. Volumes Drop Due to Bud Light Decline and Slower Beer Sales
Ball Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of beverage cans, announced a 10% drop in volumes in the North and Central America regions due to the dramatic decline in Bud Light sales and slower beer sales overall.
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Expert Topic Innovation in Beer Packaging
Innovation in packaging has changed as the beer industry evolved. First it was simple packaging that did not leak, then it was tighter seals and ways to fill and transport. The materials became lighter and more robust. Shapes evolved, and manufacturers found ways to make everything run faster and smoother while delivering a usable customer experience.
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News ICP Rules that Welsh Brewer Beer Labels Appeal to Children
Complaints about beer labels from Welsh brewer Tiny Rebel were upheld by the alcohol industry’s Independent Complaints Panel (ICP). Three of the brewery’s beers, Monstar, TinyFast and Primed were ruled to appeal to under-age drinkers or encouraging irresponsible consumption and suggesting the products had therapeutic qualities.
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News Ireland’s Bevcraft Enters US with Acquisition of Tripod Canning
Ireland-based Bevcraft Group, which specializes in canning solutions for craft beverage makers throughout much of Europe, has made a move into the U.S. by acquiring the mobile canning business of Tripod Canning in New Jersey. It is another indication of the growing consolidation within the allied trade industry serving the craft brewing business.
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News Ireland Becomes First Country to Require Health Information on Alcohol Labels
Proposals to add additional warnings and health information on alcoholic beverages has long been discussed by policymakers in the US and other countries, but no action has ever been taken. Ireland has now just become the first country in the world to require all alcohol labels to list calorie content and health risk information for consumers.
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Expert Topic To Buy or Own? Finding a Small Canning System for Your Brewery.
Mobile canning has never been more popular in beer and with a competitive marketplace, flexible schedules, and the ability to save on equipment there are a lot of reasons breweries choose to hire an outside company.
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Expert Topic Best Practices For Filling Growlers And Crowlers
The pandemic taught breweries the importance of diversifying their revenue streams and highlighted consumer interest in taking the party home with them. In addition to four and six packs of beer to go, breweries often offer crowlers and even the old standby growlers. We spoke with draft beer expert Neil Witte, the Associate Director of Exams at Cicerone and the owner of Craft Quality Solutions, a consulting and draft services business in Kansas City, about best practices for packaging beer to go.
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Expert Topic Advice For Selecting A Mobile Canning Service
There is no better business model than selling the beer you brew over your own bar. If you are a relatively small operation, that model is now tried and true but it comes with substantial limitations. Recent years, including a pandemic that shut down tap rooms around the country, have taught small and medium sized breweries that it is wise to diversify their revenue streams. Let’s take a look at when it makes sense to consider hiring a mobile canning service to help grow your business.
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Expert Topic State of Variety Packs in the Marketplace
Variety packs have been a long-time staple in beer, giving a brewery a chance to offer up multiple beers in one handy pack that, as the name suggests, offers a range of styles and flavors. A stroll through beer stores will reveal that breweries of all sizes are embracing the multi-beer format.
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Expert Topic Bag in Box Beer: An Alternative Packaging for Certain Ales
The widespread nature of COVID-19 that began three years ago introduced the concept of “pivoting” for small businesses that needed to grapple with a rapidly changed world. For brewers this widely meant the closure of taprooms and the loss of draft accounts and the change to curbside pickup, home delivery, and extra canning.
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