Best craft beer in cans: 12 boutique tinnies that crush the competition

It's that time on the beer drinker's calendar when talk turns to festivals, barbecues and other outdoor activities incompatible with glass bottles.

Cans get their turn to shine, and this no longer means compromising on the flavour and quality of the liquid within.

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Once the domain purely of mainstream lagers, cans are becoming the vessel of choice for many of Australia's small, independent breweries.

Time to shine

The canning revolution was kickstarted in 2012 by Australian Brewery in Sydney's Rouse Hill.

Since then, high profile brands like Pirate Life Brewing in Adelaide and the Gold Coast's Balter Brewing - backed by champion surfer Mick Fanning and friends - have made cans their package of choice, giving them further legitimacy.

"Aluminium cans block out light and prevent oxidation, which keeps beer tasting the way it should," says Balter co-founder Stirling Howland.

"They are lighter, recycle better, are more durable than bottles and are allowed access to festivals, national parks and other venues where glass isn't wanted. Cans are like a mini-keg in your hand capable of starting a good time wherever they go."

Dog days are over

You know this logic must be sound when the bigger brewers get involved. Just this month, Little Creatures has launched the first ever can in its 16-year history.

Creatures' Dog Days Summer Beer will now be available in cans year-round. The brewer plans to install a canning line at its Geelong brewery, so watch this space for more Creatures tinnies.

Yet cans still have some reputational issues to overcome, if the 2016 Craft Beer Survey by retailer Beer Cartel is to be believed.

Out of 6500 beer drinkers who responded, 37 per cent said they believe bottles are better, versus 23 per cent for cans (40 per cent were neutral).

"I think cans do have a stigma of cheaper, macro-produced beer," says James Booth of Black Dog Brewery in Taminick, Victoria.

The new screwcap

Black Dog has recently converted its core range of beers from bottles to cans and Booth is confident that the new format will soon be more widely accepted by drinkers, as it has been in the United States, where cans have become the norm for craft beer.

"It just takes time for people to get their heads around the idea. It reminds me of the whole screwcap versus cork [debate] in the wine industry," he says.

"When the screwcap first came in, it had the exact same stigma. Now it is totally accepted and it's actually a lot harder to sell a wine under cork," says Booth.

Black Dog and the six other breweries now comprising Victoria's High Country Brewery Trail convened this week at Blizzard Brewing in the Victorian skifields, to brew the fourth annual beer to be released under their collaborative label, #Rule 47.

This year is the first that #Rule 47 will be released in cans, the package of choice for Blizzard, Australia's highest altitude brewery at 1550 metres above sea level.

Scroll through the gallery above for a selection of some of this summer's most drinkable beers available in cans.

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