That can be true straight off the line, but a few weeks out the can will always win because even the best-capped bottle allows some oxygen ingress.
That's been my feeling for a while. I think especially with hoppy styles that cans seem (to me) to stay fresher longer. I always assumed that cans are CO2 purged when filled and afterward, zero O2 ingress.
I love that people can live in big cities, inhaling POUNDS of hydrocarbons per year, and spend the whole time obsessing about what they ingest at the femtomolar level.
+1
I've watched the cans get filled from 2 different local breweries when i was trying to decide on cans or bottles. The cheaper canning lines (ones in reach of small craft breweries) float down a conveyor. They do get purged before the get filled, but this is without the lid on. Then they go to the next station and get the lid. There's a second at least between each station. That is an awfully large amount of surface area just open to the air for what I felt like was a cringe worthy amount of time.
On my Meheen bottler I'm able to completely purge the bottle and because the neck is narrower I feel that the purge is better and more o2 is kept in the bottle. Then, the capping station is almost instantaneous, and it caps on foam.
Maybe there are canning lines out there that work better than the one's I have seen (Cask, is what I believe I have seen) but from my estimation seemed like the Meheen was a better solution for keeping out o2. Sure, perhaps the ingress is a problem on the caps but we aim to have most of our product consumed within 2-3 months if at all possible anyway.
I don't think either is a perfect package, draft is far better - and even it has its problems with dirty lines and poor co2 serving pressure - so nothing is perfect. But I really think that all things considered it is probably a wash for short term package. That said, I have some 10% ABV 22 oz bombers I bottled at YH that taste great 2 years later.
And i know some of you snobby twerps will turn your prim little noses up but I still like to knock one back out of a cold long neck every now and then and I do not enjoy drinking out of a can.
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