Company offers mobile canning service for craft beer brewers

Since East End Brewing Co. began operations in Homewood more than a decade ago, the brewery now based in Larimer has sold almost all draft beer — either in glass jugs known as growlers, in glasses or in kegs.

But on a recent afternoon, 20 barrels of Big Hop India pale ale went into 6,600 brilliant green cans, thanks to a 6-foot-long, stainless steel contraption operated by two guys from We Can Mobile Canning of Danville, Pennsylvania.

“There are hot dog carts that are bigger than that,” quipped East End owner Scott Smith as We Can owner Pete Rickert and colleague Jason Cichoskie finished setting up and sanitizing their machine.

For years, Smith has talked about canning, which has become increasingly popular with craft brewers interested in the containers’ protection from sunlight and air, lighter shipping weight/cost, portability, and recyclability. He even considered buying a small manual canner.

Instead, he ended up renting this one for a long day — a course that many small- and medium-sized breweries are taking.

The topless cans — Smith ordered 94,000 separately and had them designed by local Commonwealth Press — floated in a stainless steel bin of sanitizer. Once the brewers had the pressure right in the beer tank, the We Can team hooked up the hose and turned the canner on.

It sounded like a train clacking down the track with coins clinking into a fare box as three cans at a time moved along the length of the canner. Tubes first displaced the air inside the cans with heavier carbon dioxide, then other tubes displaced the CO2 with 12 ounces of foam topped beer.

Finally, with another puff of CO2, the machine plopped on a top — CLICK! — and sealed it with a spin that sent flecks of foam flying.

We Can is able to fill about a case worth of cans a minute, up to 55 cases an hour. Rickert, the “Head Six Packer,” can pick up a case at a time, with two six-packs in each of his big hands.

The company’s 11 other employees can 10,000 cases a month, working from Cincinnati to Ocean City, Maryland, to the New York-Canada border. They might hit the same brewery once a week.

He said they’re one of about 20 such mobile operations in the country. This was We Can’s first time in Pittsburgh, though their first client — back in 2013 — was Lavery Brewing Co. of Erie. They’ve canned for wineries, too, and soon will be canning coffee.