Ozark Beer offers second canned brew

Company’s plans to can ahead of craft beer curve

Andy Coates (left) Brant Bishop and Travis Lorton fill cans of beer at Ozark Beer Co. The company can now fill about 10 cans a minute, but will soon have equipment that can fill 27 cans a minute.
Andy Coates (left) Brant Bishop and Travis Lorton fill cans of beer at Ozark Beer Co. The company can now fill about 10 cans a minute, but will soon have equipment that can fill 27 cans a minute.

ROGERS -- Ozark Beer Co. is now canning its Belgian golden ale, the second canned offering from the brewery that opened its doors a little more than a year ago.

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NWA Democrat-Gazette

Ozark Beer Co.’s Belgian style golden ale comes in cans with artwork depicting a campfire and a bear.

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NWA Democrat-Gazette

Marty Shutter pours a Belgian style golden ale brewed by the Ozark Beer Co. in Rogers.

The can features an illustration of a black bear and a campfire, continuing the brewery's theme of featuring animals native to Arkansas. Its first canned beer, an American pale ale, displayed an elk. Lacie Bray, co-owner of the brewery, says the theme will continue as part of a plan to eventually can all the company's beers.

In December, the pale ale can was included in a gallery of the 40 best beer can designs in the online pop-culture magazine Paste. The graphics on both cans were designed by Blkbox Labs of Fayetteville.

Ozark Beer's brewery and taproom, at 1700 South First St. in Rogers, now offers five beer selections. Along with the Belgian golden ale and the American pale ale, it has an India pale ale, a cream stout, and an onyx coffee stout.

It's located off the city's greenway and trail system, and a new soccer complex is being built across the street. The company employs about a dozen, with half of those workers full time.

Now, all the canning at Ozark Beer is done by hand, a two- to three-man operation that, at most, produces 10 cans of beer a minute. Next month, the company plans to install a new canning line built in Boulder, Colo., and assembled on-site. Once in place, the new system will take two people to operate and will triple canning speeds to nearly 30 cans a minute.

The 140,000 first run of the new cans for the golden ale were obtained from Crown Canning in Houston.

Marty Shutter, spokesman for Ozark Beer, looked at the stacks of cans that will be filled with suds and pointed out a can that will soon be on the line.

"It won't be long and that's going to be in a neighbor's hand," he said.

The brewery's canned beer is sold in four Northwest Arkansas liquor stores -- one in Bentonville and three in Fayetteville. Its draft beer is sold in more than 60 restaurants, taverns and bars in the Northwest Arkansas area. Ozark Beer also sells its product in growlers.

Of the dozen or so brewery operations in Northwest Arkansas, only one other cans its product. Core Brewing and Distilling of Springdale was the state's first to can beer in recent memory. Core began canning in January 2013 and today offers three of its beers in cans.

There are 19 active native brewery permits in Arkansas, which allow the operation of a small brewery or microbrewery restaurant.

Michael Langley, director of the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration Division of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, said properly permitted brewers don't need special permission to can or bottle because the licensing allows for manufacture of the product. The division does regulate the container sizes available at retail stores and labels must be approved by the proper agencies.

According to data for 2012 from the Beer Institute, 53.2 percent of all beer produced in the United States was sold in cans, 36.5 percent was sold in bottles and 10 percent was keg or draft beer.

Craft beer made up nearly 8 percent of the total beer segment, with 15.3 million barrels produced in 2013, an increase of 17 percent compared to 2012. A barrel of beer contains 31 gallons.

Bart Watson, chief economist with the Brewers Association in Colorado, said the most recent official numbers from a 2011 survey showed 179 craft brewers canned their beer. By volume, craft brewers canned only 3 percent of their total output in 2011, compared to 60 percent in bottles and 37 percent in draft or kegs.

Watson said the number of canned craft beers is expected to increase. Recent surveys indicate craft brewers are now canning about 4 to 5 percent of total production.

"That said, bottles are still clearly king in craft," he wrote in an email.

He cited a report from Chicago-based marketing research firm IRI that tracked off-site sales that showed one canned beer was among the top 50 craft packages.

Andy Coates, Ozark's co-owner and head brewer, said cans offer more than bottles for the fledgling brewery. He noted canning technology had greatly improved and modern cans protect beer from its greatest enemies -- light and oxygen.

Another plus for canned beer is that cans are more portable and are welcome on the state's rivers and lakes. They're also lighter, easier to ship and can be easily recycled.

The company's long-term goals are modest, Bray said. The expanded canning operation is part of the brewery's plan to grow slowly and steadily to meet community demand as the Northwest Arkansas and state craft beer scene continues to evolve. The end result is to have Ozark Beer's products available throughout the state.

"We're not looking to take over the world with this," she said.

SundayMonday Business on 01/18/2015

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