Boulevard Brewing Co. began packaging some of its Unfiltered Wheat Beer in new 16-ounce aluminum bottles on Thursday. The product will hit the market April 1.
The Kansas City-based company produced about 2,700 cases of beer in the aluminum bottles on its initial run Thursday. The brewery will continue to offer its Unfiltered Wheat in glass bottles and barrels, as well.
“If you’re out mowing the lawn, out at the golf course or at the pool where you can’t have glass, you can now drink Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat in an aluminum bottle,” said John McDonald, Boulevard founder and president. “Being only in the glass bottle, we didn’t have access to venues like golf courses and stadiums. So that was a big reason.”
McDonald said the idea came from one of the early designs for a beer can, called a “cone top.” He said it was designed to fit on the same bottling equipment that beer companies already had. That made it attractive to Boulevard also because it recently installed a new $6 million bottling line in September.
McDonald said that other companies use plastic but that he ruled it out because plastic allows oxygen to enter the container.
The new packaging requires large volume to be economical, Boulevard Marketing Director Jeremy Ragonese said, so it will only be available for Boulevard’s top-selling Unfiltered Wheat.
The new aluminum bottles will be offered at convenience stores as a single-serve purchase, at various large grocery and liquor stores, and at venues such as golf courses and concerts.