Cooldown Cocktails // Canned Beer

It used to be sacrilege to put good beer in a can. The metallic taste curbed carefully crafted flavors, relegating them to the bottom shelf. Bottles were better, but not the best; exposure to sunlight will cause a hoppy beer to smell “skunky” in as little as a minute. The hop compounds that lend bitterness to beer get transformed by sunlight into sulfur compounds. The wavelengths of light that make this happen are largely blocked by brown glass, but pass right through clear, green and blue glass. What to do?

Thanks to modern technology, the insides of cans are now coated with a water-based polymer that prohibits that metallic taste from infecting your beer. Moreover, beer in cans is much lighter (and therefore cheaper) to ship, doesn’t require a special labeling machine, is easier and cheaper to recycle, does a better job at keeping out oxygen (which can adversely affect flavor) and chills faster. Cans Win! Cans Win!

Here are our picks for filling your backpack or cooler this summer:

Hemlock Imperial India Pale Ale
Big Choice Brewing

Nowadays, imperial gets tossed onto any beer style that goes big—IPAs, nut brown ales, pilsners, and on and on. The American versions of India Pale Ales are usually big and intense to start with and can have a face-twisting bitterness approaching 100 IBUs. But if Big Choice knows one thing, it’s balance. Don’t let their boast of using a 47-pound mix of Warrior, Centennial, Columbus and Cascade hops in each 7-barrel batch scare you. They turn up the malt to match the 104 IBUs, making this rich, robust Double IPA surprisingly drinkable. At 9.5 ABV, you might want to share a can, but it’s still a tasty way to end a hot day.

Ten Fidy Imperial Stout
Oskar Blues Brewing

Slamming a chilled Ten Fidy after a bluebird day mowing the lawn would put you face down in the clippings faster than you could lick your lips. Punching in at 10.5 percent ABV, this is no practice beer. But context is everything. Chill that same, ominous black and silver can in a mountain stream while you pitch your tent and boil up some water to bring your dehydrated Mountain House Mac and Beef dinner to life and you will be met with a glorious reward. The bodacious amounts of roasted barley and chocolate malt lend this potent brew a disarming aroma and flavor; the prodigious amount of two-row malt gives this stout a port-like viscosity and mouthfeel.

Craft Lager
Upslope Brewing

If kicking a hot, parched throat to the curb requires significant quantities of flavorful, easy-drinking, ice-cold beer, a couple six-packs of Upslope’s Craft Lager is what you’re after. The Saaz hops give this session beer a classic Pilsner aroma and flavor. The “just right” 4.8 ABV make having two or three just the ticket for washing away the scorching thirst of a hot day. You’ll not find any flavorless fillers in this beer, just wholesome malted barley. And while craft brewers tend to shy away from lagers because they take more time and care (i.e. cooler temperatures) to ferment properly, Upslope gets it right—and we are less thirsty for it.

Saison Ale
Sanitas Brewing

Pour this golden brew in a glass and you’re immediately met with a delicately sweet aroma of apricots, peaches and bubble gum. But once it hits your lips, be ready for a tart, quenching flavor from the Saison yeast and hints of citrus from the hops. The combination makes for a supremely quaffable beer that, while highly refreshing when chilled to the bone, gets increasingly complex as it warms. Light in body and only clocking in at 5.2 percent ABV, this is definitely a 12-pack purchase.