Food & Wine published an article that was picked up by "WSWA Daily News Clips," headlined, "Here's the Real Reason Beer Comes in Aluminum Cans."

The article notes, correctly, that the first commercial use of a can for packaging beer was in 1935 when Gottfried Krueger Brewery of Newark, N.J., first offered beer and ale in cans. Up until then "beer was available in kegs, barrels, bottles, and transport containers called growlers. Packaging beer in cans was revolutionary and changed how consumers thought about and consumed beer.

"Of course," the article says, "bottles didn't immediately disappear. For a long time, during the post-Prohibition years in America, glass containers were king. Those bottles came in all shapes, sizes and colors. Cans largely came in one size – 12 ounces – and even as the technology improved and aluminum became the standard material, there was a feeling among beer drinkers that cans were a lesser vessel when compared to glass."

And then the article goes off track. "That began to change as small, or “craft,” breweries grew in the United States. While some craft brands dabbled in cans early on, credit can be given to Colorado-based Oskar Blues Brewery, which went all in on canning in the early 2000s and made the packaging a centerpiece of its sales and marketing."

Wrong, wrong and wrong. Anheuser-Busch first introduced cans in 1938 in an attempt to get Americans to drink beer again after Prohibition. The packaging led to an increase in Budweiser sales that lasted until the start of World War II in 1939.

When it comes to packaging, the Food & Wine article got one thing right about the history of beer packaging: "bottles didn't immediately disappear." In fact, today they still represent 27% to 29% of total volume, far behind cans which dominate beer packaging at 64% to 71% of total volume. Craft breweers now package about 70% of their beer in cans.

NBWA Daily News Briefs is distributed to NBWA members but is not published by NBWA. It's a product of Multiview. a digital marketing agency. NBWA is one of more than 850 associations who partner with Multiview. which produces association newsletters and other publications. From Multiview's website, we gather than NBWA gets a slice of revenue from the six ads in Daily news briefs.