Stubbies or Cans?

Not only do I like to talk about what kinds of beer there are but what beer comes in as well. The two main containers are made of glass or metal, both hold the same product but many people swear that one is better than the other.

The following is a summary of what I discovered on beerbrewguru.com. Before factories existed to churn out countless stubbies (bottles for non-Australians) and cans, beer was stored in wooden barrels and gravity poured. The reason it is available now in both cans and stubbies is because it tastes different in cans while stubbies are still big sellers.

No flat tyres today

If you ask my father he would tell you that beer from cans has a bad metal taste, but if you asked someone that I used to work with (name withheld) they often asked me if I drank cans or stubbies. I would always reply with stubbies, they would then remind me why they drink from cans – so they didn’t get a flat tyre on the way to work the next day. I still laugh when I think about that. For the record I do not condone drinking and driving.

An Australian six pack

Cans and stubbies range in sizes, cans can generally be bought at 375ml or 500ml. Stubbies seem to be more alternate in size, the standard size in Australia is of course 375ml (standard size in Japan is 355ml) but more and more breweries are selling their product in slightly smaller bottles (330ml, 355ml for example), luckily you can still buy stubbies that are 750ml (called longnecks).

Look at the size of this beer!

My time in Japan changed me, the only way to buy bottles of beer was to buy longnecks individually and if I wanted a carton I had to settle for cans. This was a big change for my drinking habits as I am a stubby drinker by nature but will sometimes stray to cans if that is all that’s available. The local brew Otaru Beer was somewhat around for purchase in stubbies, they looked like the odd VB shaped bottles. But there was one can that I was glad to drink from. Asahi were selling a 2 Litre, yes 2 LITRE can of Asahi beer. This monster was so big that it has a plastic handle on the side for you to hold it and a screw cap for those who can’t finish it and can put it back in the fridge (I will never admit to doing that!), the downside is that by the time you get to the bottom that it isn’t the same when you started once it has warmed up a bit. To my surprise upon my return I learned that my all-time favourite bottle shop BWS (Beer, Wine and Spirits) was selling this monster of a can so I picked up a box of six to keep me busy. (Insert subliminal message: shop at BWS)

Otaru Beer

A true stubby, short and fat

I don't know where to begin...

Cans and stubbies both have good and bad aspects when it comes to drinking. A can can be crushed and disposed of easily. Whereas a stubby if broken makes a hell of a mess (especially if it was still full of beer) and when the recycling truck empties your bin however often it comes they hear the clanging of unbroken bottles and just sigh from the assumption that I’m a raging alcoholic (the jury is still out on that one though). The biggest issue with cans and stubbies though is that they run out, probably because there is a hole in the top, then you have to go on a hunt for another one. 

Price wise there isn’t normally a difference, the packing is of course different and a carton of cans is not as big as a carton of stubbies. But Australian bottle shops though now sell blocks, a block is a 30 can box of beer, which gives you an extra six beers for a few extra bucks.

Beer is good for health

Australians love to collect these

Australians like to drink their beer of choice in cooler type devices called stubby holders. I will point out the obvious that they are called stubby holders which means that embedded in Australian drinking culture is the name stubby over can. For those who don’t know much about Australian terminology a stubby by definition is short and thick – which only really suits VB or Otaru Beer. But in Australia, calling a stubby a bottle is similar in the fire service to calling a Breathing Apparatus cylinder a bottle – its incorrect and you have to shout a beer to everyone who heard you say that.

Stubby strip - for long missions

Glassing is not cool

During my research I learned that pathologists in 2009 (this is from Wikipedia) determined that a beer stubby is strong enough to crack a human skull. This is a bad thing in that someone intoxicated with a potential glass weapon could cause harm to another, in contrast if you threw an empty can at somebody you would simply piss them off. I am assuming that you would only ever throw an empty container and not waste good beer.

Glass containers come in different colours depending on the beer and the brewery, I have heard on many occasions on how the colour of the glass can affect the beer, for example, people believe that a clear glass stubby when in prolonged contact with light (fridge or sun light) will lose its quality. It turns out (from berghoffbeer.com) that the Ultra Violet rays from the sun break down the alpha acids in hops which when then react with the sulphur present in the beer to form a chemical that is almost identical to the chemical that skunks use to spray predators. It has also been discovered that green bottles only offer very little protection from light – which is why I’ve seen many Pure Blonde stubbies returned by customers because they stink from being left in the lit up fridge for too long. 

This looks like it was a good night

Tinting the stubbies is the same idea as tinted sunglasses, to keep the UV rays out of your eyes and your beer. The colours of the glass many years ago represented the quality of the beer, clear meant cheap while brown meant it was a higher class of beer. These days though the colour of the bottle no longer represents class or quality, it will mainly be chosen due to marketing or to make the stubby stand out in the fridge. The author of the website points out the best way to store beer is in a cold and DARK location.

Its a habit to crush a can when finished

Regardless of the colour of the can the beer is hidden inside. They are stackable and you can satisfyingly crush the can when you have finished – feeling like a super beer hero who can warp metal with his/ her bare fingers. There is one thing you can do with cans that you can’t do with stubbies – shotgun. I’ve seen this on TV and at many parties where people stab the bottom area of a can and crack the top, the gravity feeding in from the top forces the beer out of the bottom hole faster than normal. It is fun to watch but messy if not done correctly.

I might go and try some cans and stubbies to figure out which is the best of the two.

I love beer!

Cheers