Photo by Jay Paul
Exposure to UV rays through clear or green glass bottles can “skunk” beer or make it taste like cardboard. Air is also detrimental to a fresh-tasting brew. So what’s the workaround when you want a “fresh-to-death” beer?
Enter the can.
Once a more expensive way to package beer, the can has seen a resurgence in the last few years, largely thanks to the local guy behind Old Dominion Mobile Canning, Mike Horn. (Cool fact: In 1935, the first canned beer in the United States went on sale here in Richmond.)
Horn started Old Dominion in 2013. He had been headed toward starting a brewery, but mobile canning just made more sense to him. Horn sets up a temporary canning line inside a brewery, winery or cidery, cans the product and then leaves. Old Dominion was sold to Iron Heart Canning in 2016, with Horn retaining partial ownership. “I brought [mobile canning] to the East Coast, though only by a couple of months,” Horn says. “Being first to market is a key factor in a new industry.”
Horn started canning with Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Devils Backbone and Wild Wolf Brewing, and he still cans much of Hardywood’s beer. He credits those three breweries with helping push the mobile canning movement forward. In the past five years, the growth of the industry has been incredible: Thirty-five mobile canning lines servicing 20 states will can 50 million cans of cider, coffee, beer and wine this year for more than 600 clients.
