When Piney River was the first microbrewery in the state of Missouri to can beer at our brewery November 2011, it was a very hands-on process in a very tight space. Putting craft beer in a can was still a fairly new phenomenon, but we knew it was the best way to enjoy beer in nature, which is what we are all about. From the beginning we hand-applied the black four-pack tops to our cans because that was the only way we could put cans together. We didn’t have the space for another machine!
The photo doesn’t do it justice, but these four/six-pack top pallets are actually over 8-feet tall!
Seven years and a whole lotta cans later, we were still applying those tops by hand, but we had the space to help mechanize the process. Brian and I began looking at our alternatives. We had to buy a machine one way or another, and before investing more money in our brewery, we had to consider our options and the environmental footprint. The plastic four-pack/six-pack tops that we’ve used over the years are made of recycled plastic, but they come in to us by the pallet load–boxes and boxes of them shipped all the way from Oregon which is also extremely expensive, creating a huge carbon footprint, and taking up a large amount of valuable space in our brewery.
We also know that many Piney River drinkers don’t have access to plastic recycling, so those plastic tops end up in landfills rather than at a recycling center.
Thousands of four/sick pack rings in these two small boxes that are much lighter and easier to ship.
A roll of rings is a small box that takes up very little space and uses much less energy to transport from the factory (in IL) to us. There is A LOT less plastic in the rings versus the Pak-Tech tops, so there’s a lot less plastic ending up in a landfill if it isn’t recycled.
Our new Mumm ring applicator attached to the end of the canning line.
Six-pack rings on Piney River beers!
