Does canned beer taste better than bottled beer?

Question

Lately I've been seeing a lot of articles (mostly in local news) that suggest that canned beer is better, but from my own subjective experience I find it worse than beer stored in glass bottles. And the one that comes in plastic bottles is the worst in my opinion.

An article from Business Insider:

To everyone's delight, canning is also better for a beer's quality, according to Welz.

Cans don't let light in, plain and simple. "Light is destructive to the organic compound in beer that make the flavors everyone is so crazy about," he said.

Welz also suspects that cans, with a "double-crimped" seal, are better than bottles at preventing air from getting in — air being one of the main enemies of a delicious brew.

All that is true, but Ska Brewing thinks the mounting consumer preference for canned beer has less to do with quality and more to do with convenience.

Have there been any scientific studies that prove that canned beer tastes better? Like beer from different sources being given to a group of people, then they point out which one is the best without knowing the source?

Answer 1

Taste is extremely subjective and I couldn't find any rigorous tests scientific literature of blind taste tests. However, that said, unscientific tests such as one by the Huffington Post had the following results for blind bottled vs. canned taste test with 25 tasters:

• Budweiser - 64 percent identified the canned variety, 17 percent preferred the canned variety
• Heineken - 52 percent identified the canned variety, 68 percent percent preferred the canned variety
• Sapporo - 56 percent identified the canned variety, 52 percent percent preferred the canned variety
• Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA - 44 percent identified the canned variety, 68 percent percent preferred the canned variety

So as you can see, in may cases the correct identification as very close to random chance and the preference of one of the other as variable. This variability leads to the much more interesting point that there are practical reasons for canning vs. bottling and that is cans are better than bottles in protecting the beverage from UV light, also known "skunky beer."

There are some reports that some people may be able to smell the metal of the can while drinking from it which may the beer to taste different due to the connection between smell and taste. This sense of smell is part of a Sam Adams marketing campaign for their canned beer,

Similar to the highly specialized and often grape specific Reidel and Spiegelau wine glasses that swept oenophiles in the 1990s, they are specially designed for the proper “delivery” of beer. According to Sam Adams’ press release, “The position of the can opening and wider lid naturally opens up the mouth allowing for more air flow and positions the drinker’s nose closer to the hop aromas of the beer. A little known fact is that most of what we think we taste is actually what we smell – that’s why it’s hard to taste food with a stuffed up nose. Drinkers also noticed that the extended, curved lip of the can delivered the beer to the front of the palate to maximize the early enjoyment of the malt sweetness.”

Also, modern cans are now lined with a water-based epoxy, i.e. bisphenol-A, to ensure that the beer does not interact with the can itself. This does lead to other arguments against canned beer on the grounds of bisphenol-A leeching into the beer; however, that does not appear to actually affect the taste of the beer itself.

So in summary, there are some scientific reasons why canned beers might taste better than bottled, namely by preventing UV light exposure which can lead to skunking of the beer, but beyond that there shouldn't be any reason why the same product would taste noticeably different. When beer is poured and drunk for a glass, as generally recommended, any issues with smells coming off the container would also be avoided and you should be unable to tell the difference, as hinted at by the Huffington Post article.