January/February 2021

Packaging Issue

For the January/February 2021 The New Brewer, we present our Packaging issue. In this issue, author Greg Kitsock takes a closer look at one of the significant challenges currently affecting craft brewers: the aluminum can shortage. In addition, financial guru Audra Gaiziunas discusses pathways for obtaining new equipment for your brewery; Gary Nicholas outlines food safety as it applies to packaging operations; and Lindsay Barr discusses the importance of sensory evaluation of packaged beer. We also take a look at how on-premise breweries such as taprooms and brewpubs are continuing to survive the pandemic.

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Cover Story

Packaging Issue

Can Crunch

Craft brewers have been forced to scrounge packaging wherever they can, including repurposing “old” cans with makeshift labels and dusting off bottling lines.

Packaging Issue

Featured Stories

Financial Pathways for Adding Brewery Equipment

Audra Gaiziunas

Exploring different avenues of bringing equipment in house can take center stage as brewers strategize how to move forward during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Food Safety in Beer Packaging

Gary Nicholas

Since packaging operations are the last set of a brewery’s process steps to touch beer before it’s consumed, it’s essential that breweries pay strict attention to food safety.

Attention to Detail

Lindsay Barr

Monitoring and controlling packaging operations is one of the biggest challenges to beer quality, and it often distinguishes good brewers from great brewers.

Packaging Trends

Mike Kallenberger

The history of package mix in beer has been a dance of the respective market shares of cans and bottles, each growing and declining in response to long-term trends.

Staying Afloat

Gabe Toth

Adding packaging, ramping up outdoor spaces, and finding other creative ways to keep customers engaged have been crucial to on-premise breweries’ survival.

A Note From the Editor

Jill Redding, Editor-in-Chief

This issue also includes our usual informative departments, plus brewery-generated news about the craft brewing community in the Brewery Updates and Beer Releases sections; and new products and services from allied trade in Industry Supplier News. In our back-page interview, we highlight AJ Brockman of Kelsey City Brewing Company, which faced an uphill battle when it opened in February 2020 but has found significant community support to keep it going.

Cheers, and we hope you enjoy this issue of The New Brewer.

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