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Core77 Reader's Wife Designs the Perfect Beer Can Opening

...in ".02 seconds"

By Rain Noe - January 17, 2017

in Packaging

After seeing our post on The Design Evolution of Beer Can Openings, reader Devin Sidell's wife may have designed the perfect beer can aperture. To get you up to speed, we were discussing how a single opening in a can leads to "glugging," i.e. turbulence while drinking since there's no airflow. Users of early flat-top beer can designs thus punched two holes in them:

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Well, Sidell took the time to Photoshop up this clever way to solve the problem using the modern-day tab:

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Pretty brilliant, no? "The top being for the intake of air and the bottom for drinking, of course. The tab can already swivel so it can perform the same action twice.

"I'm sure this has already been done," Sidell writes, "but I'm just curious why it's not on cans already."

If it has been done, we can't find it. Here's a photo from the Budweiser Brewery showing a bunch of different can apertures that have been tried over the years:

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I don't see any tab-based dual aperture designs there.

About four years ago Miller experimented with a "punch top can" design that had a little second tab the user could punch open with a key or similar.

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Unsurprisingly, a rather stupid news report emerged attempting to sow fear among parents, claiming that the design was meant to encourage the shotgunning of beer:

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This is about glugging, people, not shotgunning!

So, Sidell, to address why this hasn't been done: My guess is that A) no company wants to deal with whatever perceived backlash Miller might have faced, and/or B) the added manufacturing cost is perceived as not worth it because C) customers ultimately don't care. This is what I hate about having a design background; you can't help but notice these little ways that an experience could possibly be improved, however minutely, then realize that most of society is not that interested.

In any case, Sidell, or should I say Mrs. Sidell, I like your design! "I…have to give credit to my very creative wife," Sidell writes, "who basically gave me the answer to the design in about .02 seconds of me asking her!"

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Eliot Phillips

7 years ago

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I found a similar article Alexander's from the same period http://www.cnbc.com/id/100793351

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Alexander Molyneaux

7 years ago

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Coors Light and Molson Canadian have been doing something like this for a while now. It's not on every can but it is out there.

REF:
http://www.marketingmag.ca/brands/molson-coors-debuts-vented-can-for-smoother-pour-83392

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Rowan Page

7 years ago

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Or just rip the whole top off and turn the can into a cup.

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Devin Sidell

7 years ago

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Rain, this is great! Thanks so much for posting on this I thought her concept was brilliant. She's actually a jewelry designer, you can see her work here: https://www.etsy.com/people/KatieMarieHorn So I guess when two designers come together you can make some pretty cool stuff!

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The Skipper

7 years ago

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Side note on the economy of canned beverages, it is not uncommon for the packaging of the product to cost significantly more than the contents. Keep that in mind the next time you are standing in front of a vending machine or beer aisle.

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The Skipper

7 years ago

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In the 80's and maybe early 90's Foster's oilcans had two poptops that took care of this. Of course the extra real estate on the top made this easier. I was quite young and when I asked "why?" I was told that it was a popular beer with college kids that enjoyed shotgunning beer. Pictures are impossible to find but the memory is burned into my mind.......ssssssssss

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