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Sam Adams Turns to IDEO for New Beer Cans

By Rain Noe - April 24, 2013

in Object Culture

[Ed. Note: Thanks to reader kblack for pointing out that the image captions were backwards]

Bud's new beer can comes out in May, and Sly Fox's 360 Lid can is out now. Recently there's been word that a major brewer is introducing a yet another new can this summer. How much more design variance is possible in an aluminum beer can?

Samuel Adams' parent company, Boston Beer Co., hired IDEO to find out. The Sam Adams brand has famously eschewed cans for years; company founder Jim Koch, displaying a Steve-Jobs-like asceticism, felt that cans offered an inferior customer experience and refused to deal in them. But beer sold in cans is some 57% of the U.S. market, and are the only way beer can be served in certain places, like airplanes and stadiums. That translates to millions of dollars' worth. So two years ago, Koch decided he'd consider cans and contracted IDEO to design a better type.

The Boston Globe's got the skinny on what the subsequent research turned up, and it might surprise some of you beer drinkers:

The big discovery: Conventional cans don't allow enough air into people's mouths as they drink. Turns out much of what consumers believe they taste is actually smell.... Increasing exposure to the beer's aromas of hops and fruit can make a big difference in taste, said Roy Desrochers, a professional beer taster at GEI Consultants in Woburn.

So the team began looking for ways to improve air flow. Over several months, IDEO proposed dozens of designs and created eight prototypes that expanded the size and shape of the can's opening. Larger apertures—one shaped like a bell, another like a peanut—were supposed to enhance the air flow and access to aromas. The most promising idea, according to Koch, was a design that allowed drinkers to tear off the entire top.

...But there were problems [with the open-top design]: the tear-off top violated litter laws in most states. And the gaping opening made people nervous. They were worried about cutting their nose or lip on the edge, afraid of bugs flying inside, or the drink spilling.

What IDEO finally came up with is a can with a wider lid (as seen at right, below):

The wider top pushes the aperture closer to the rim (again, below at right), which means beer tips more readily into the mouth.

The new Sam Adams cans, code named "Bunker Hill," are due to hit store shelves this summer. Beer consultant Desrochers, who were hired to provide input on the project, feels the new design is a winner. "With a traditional can, you feel like you're sucking liquid out," they report. "With the new design, the beer flows in nicely... and you don't get the sensation that it might spill out the side of your mouth."

The following video gives you a taste, no pun intended, of what Sam Adams went through in their quest for a new can. (Irritatingly, they don't mention IDEO by name even once.)

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Will

11 years ago

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" Cold filtered, no aftertaste and plenty of other marketing and recipe changes are all due to many, many studies showing that American beer drinkers do not like the taste of beer, which is also one of the reasons some HUGE selling American beer is brewed with rice instead of wheat."

Sam Adams isn't marketed towards people who "don't like the taste of beer". Believe it or not, many of us do. Don't lump us all together just because of where we happened to be born (something I had absolutely no control over, I assure you). Kthx.
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Ben

11 years ago

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We have had beer/softdrink in wide-mouth cans in Australia and New Zealand for the past decade at least! A simple image search for wide mouth can on google returns results of hundreds of different manufacturers doing the same thing?
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Jonathan

11 years ago

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Months of research...and the answer is to knock off Japanese coffee cans (see link below). Maybe the lack of innovation is why IDEO spoke so little?

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/122/7cebfe3f205d4fc58970588465efb1cc/l.jpg
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Skip

11 years ago

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If you look at the video between :39 and :44 you can see some of the test designs that include a total removble lid a figure 8 and some others. Overall interesting idea. Surprised no one has thought to brew to the can??? anyone? anyone? Farris?
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Jackson Curtis

11 years ago

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I really liked the idea of ripping the entire top of the can so that the can would function like any other cup. IDEO should have focused more on this aspect in my opinion. I too would have expected more bold design moves from IDEO. The narrow-focused design problem solving here serves to improve air flow incrementally with tiny improvements. However, this wide mouth idea has been done before. Wasn't there any room to make improvements beyond what was previously done before?

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Aedhan

11 years ago

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IDEO was hired so they couldn't just say "uh we cant really make the can any better" so they came up with this hardly noticeable "improvement". This is an unnecessary design and makes IDEO look bad for claiming that this is true design. While they might have applied their picturesque post-it note design technique, this is no improvement. But, since IDEO designed it, it must be revolutionary, right?
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Frank

11 years ago

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The smaller top also makes financial sense. The aluminum on top is thicker, so by making it smaller, you'd save material costs producing the cans. I believe Coke did something similar 5-10 years ago.
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Andrew

11 years ago

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Someone got paid (a lot? a little?) money to design a beer can... that is identical to a soda can design that's been around for about 5 years? I'm in the wrong business.

I assume the same people figured discovered that not enough air is getting in. I guess no one is old enough to remember piercing openings in both sides of the top to allow for air flow. If Americans aren't smart enough to figure out how to operate a beer can, perhaps the issue is not the can. Just sayin'.

...much of what consumers believe they taste is actually smell.... Increasing exposure to the beer's aromas of hops and fruit can make a big difference in taste... Cold filtered, no aftertaste and plenty of other marketing and recipe changes are all due to many, many studies showing that American beer drinkers do not like the taste of beer, which is also one of the reasons some HUGE selling American beer is brewed with rice instead of wheat.

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