New West Sixth Brewing announces it
will be the first craft brew in cans in Kentucky

A new craft beer-brewing enterprise which will open soon in the historic Northside Neighborhood has announced that it will be Kentucky’s first craft beer to be distributed in cans.

A group of Thirty-something entrepreneurs, Ben Self, Joe Kuosman, Brady Barlow and Robin Sither have founded West Sixth Brewing and are retro-fitting the old Rainbo Bread Factory at the corner of Jefferson and west Sixth, near Transylvania University and the new Bluegrass Community and Technical College site.

The 90,000 square foot building, to be known as The Bread Box, will be a multi-use facility that will include West Sixth Brewing.

On West Sixth Brewing’s website today, Self made this announcement:

“Soon after we open this spring, we’re going to be the first craft brewery in Kentucky to package our beers in a can!

When we started West Sixth, we made a few commitments as a brewery:
We will make delicious and creative local craft beer.
We will be dedicated to the community that we live in.
We will place a premium on being good to the planet we live on.

Because of this, the decision to can our beer was simple. And, we summarized it on the label you can see beside this post – ‘Why a can? Better for the beer. Better for the planet. Better on the go.’

What do we mean by that?

First, cans will keep craft beer fresher longer. The two most damaging things that can make a craft beer taste bad are light and air. It’s obvious to see, then, why craft beer will keep longer in a can – the can doesn’t allow any light through and the seal is much tighter than the seal of a bottle. And, unlike canned beer of the past, today’s cans are lined with a water-based coating, so that the beer and metal never touch each other, and there is never an off flavor generated.

Second, cans are a better for the environment. Shipping cans uses less fossil fuels because it weighs a lot less than glass. Aluminum is easier to recycle than glass, and requires less packaging. And, did you know that nationwide, 75% of glass ends up in landfills? Nationwide, 57% of aluminum cans are recycled.

And finally, cans are extremely portable – they can go lots of places bottles just can’t go as easily – on a boat at the lake, in your backpack when you’re hiking, or while you’re playing golf or bike polo!

There are lots of challenges to cans for sure – the packaging line is a lot more complicated than a bottling line, and because there’s only a few can manufacturing plants in the US, the minimum order of empty cans is almost 100,000! But, we’re confident that with the advantages described above, we made the right choice.”