Inflation kicks brewers in can

Inflation is now coming for our beer.

The rising cost of aluminum cans and bottles is forcing craft breweries across the country to hike prices.

Broomfield, Colo.-based Ball Corp., one of the world’s biggest suppliers of aluminum cans and other recyclable beverage containers, told clients recently that it plans to hike prices and lift the minimum number of cans certain producers can order.

Starting Jan. 1, the company will raise the minimum order for noncontract customers, which includes many small breweries, from one truck load to five truckloads, or about a million cans, according to CNN. Bell also said it’s hiking the price per can by nearly 50 percent for at least some noncontract customers.

The changes are an “economic killer for some,” Garrett Marrero, CEO and co-founder of Maui Brewing in Hawaii, told CNN, “and certainly most small brewers are going to have to raise prices significantly or rethink their entire models.”

Bob Pease, president and CEO of the Brewers Association, which represents small and independent brewers, told CNN, “This is still pretty darn new, so we’re still trying to gather information from our members that are being impacted.”

Pease added that the change will mean that hundreds of craft brewers will likely need to source their cans elsewhere, potentially throwing the industry into disarray for the time being.

Representatives for the association plan to meet with Ball executives sometime next month.

Matt Cutter, co-founder of Upslope Brewing in Boulder, Colo., told CNN that the move could force brewers to hike prices on craft six-packs by $1 to $2.