- The Daily An innovative container changes the way Americans drink beer

- The Daily:

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The American Can Company had long been interested in developing a canned version of suds. The company had been formed in 1901 after Daniel Gray Reid, the “Tin Plate King,” purchased a controlling interest in several smaller can manufacturers. Its first president, William T. Graham, was no stranger to good fortune: His wife and daughter had been rescued from the foundering Titanic in 1912. American Can, which in its first decade produced 85 percent of America’s tin cans forpreserving food, would experience similar good fortune in later years.

In 1909, Leopold Schmidt, a German immigrant and brewmaster, requested that American Can look into canning beer for his Olympia Brewing Company in Washington state. Cans were — in theory, at least — superior to bottles in several ways: They were easier to stack, and thus to transport; they didn’t break as easily; they were lighter; and they didn’t expose beer to sunlight the way bottles did. (Sunlight can damage the flavor of beer, leaving it sour and spoiled-tasting, or “skunky.”) The problem, however, was that, unlike beans, corn and tomatoes, beer produced pressure as it carbonated — and the outgassing tended to burst the flimsy tin cans of the time. Though American Can struggled mightily with the problem between 1909 and 1920, the onset of Prohibition slowed the project and the U.S. brewing industry ground to a virtual halt.