Vented, Wide-Mouth Beer Can Devised Locally

By Joe Napsha

Beer drinkers who like their brew in a can and want a smoother pour now can get it — thanks to a new pull-top can developed by Alcoa Inc.

The wider pull-top with a vent, featured on Coors Brewing Co. cans, was developed at the Alcoa Technical Center in Upper Burrell, the aluminum company said Friday.

The “hole” solution to the problem of a smoother pour was a wider pull-top that opens a vent tube connected to the hole where the liquid pours out. That directs the air to flow in behind the liquid as it pours out, said Darl Boysel, the project leader for Alcoa and a manager for the center’s rigid packaging division technology.

It’s not the first time Alcoa has contributed to making it easier for Americans to drink out of a can.

In 1962, the company made the first pull-top aluminum can, which revolutionized the beer and soft-drink industries, said Ann Whitty, general manager of Alcoa’s rigid packaging division. Unlike Alcoa’s development of a special aluminum skin to make the U.S. Air Force’s Stealth bomber invisible to enemy radar, this is a technical center product people can see and touch.

The new style of opening for an aluminum can was the result of Alcoa’s partnership with Ball Corp. and Coors Brewing, both of Golden, Colo., Alcoa spokeswoman Judy Chestnutt said.

Whether the request to develop this new aluminum can came from Alcoa or Ball, is not clear, said Jennifer Hoover, a Ball Corp. spokeswoman.

Boysel said the Alcoa Technical Center was given the challenge of figuring out how to get beer, or any other liquid, out of a can in a faster and smoother fashion. In essence, he said, the problem was finding the best solution to get the liquid out of the can and the air into it.

“We brainstormed and created a list of possible solutions,” sketching out what might work, said Boysel, a mechanical engineer.

The team made a prototype can in the lab at the technical center, filled it with water, carbonated the water, then opened it up, Boysel said.

The project was finished more than a year ago, Boysel said, but Coors just came out with the vented, wide-mouth can last month.

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