ST. LOUIS, April 19, 2013 /BSNewswire/ – This spring Budweiser will introduce a striking and original new beer can — a bowtie-shaped aluminum can that mirrors Budweiser’s iconic bowtie logo; and following the lead from a recent announcement by Sam Adams, Anheuser Busch will allow the can to be used by other breweries.
Beer lovers can see for themselves the new bowtie-shaped can when it becomes available in a special 8-pack on store shelves nationwide beginning May 6.
“This can is incomparable, like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” said Pat McGauley, vice president of innovation for Anheuser-Busch. “The world’s most iconic beer brand deserves the world’s most unique and innovative can. I think we have it here.”
An excited McGauley added: “I mean, if you want to be technical it’s a lot like other cans you’ve seen before, in that it is an aluminum package for beer. But this one is shaped like a bowtie, which focus groups indicate you haven’t seen, or perhaps even thought about.”
The proprietary can, in development since 2010, reportedly cost the brewing giant more than the operating revenue for the nation’s top ten craft breweries combined. It will be available only in the United States in an 8-pack and will not replace the traditional Budweiser can.
To make the new can possible, Anheuser-Busch engineers needed to solve a number of technical challenges, and major equipment investments were required at Budweiser’s can-making facility in Newburgh, N.Y. Significant capital investments also were required to upgrade packaging lines at the Budweiser breweries in Los Angeles and Williamsburg, Va., the first breweries with capability to package this unique can innovation. Equipment used to manufacture the Stealth Bomber was also transported from an Air Force base in Nevada to enable the production of this very special can.
Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City and 90 miles south of Albany, is where proprietary equipment is located that shapes the can. Creating the can requires a careful 98-step process — 53 steps to form the bottom half of the can, with an additional 45 steps to form the top portion.
The Anheuser-Busch Global Innovation Group has been investigating potential can innovations for several years, often ordering lunch to be delivered to the office, and many afternoons working past 4 PM.
“We explored various shapes that would be distinguishable in the marketplace, but also viable from an engineering standpoint. Boomerangs, obelisks, several versions of rhombi… we even made a prototype shaped like Spuds MacKenzie.” McGauley said. “Aluminum can be stretched only about 10 percent without fracturing, which requires that the angles of the bowtie be very precise.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Slouch Sixpack 
Recently, I found myself sitting in a car on Friday afternoon, at the border of the United States and Canada, anxiously awaiting a weekend of delicious Seattle hop-bombs on the way back from suffering through nine days of weak Canadian swill.* I thought I had nothing to fear. I thought my suffering was over. I thought wrong. When my passport was scanned, a warrant popped up for my arrest for a crime I did not commit, in a Missouri county I have never been, on a date when I wasn’t even on this continent. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Quick question for you: what is responsible for the adoption of agriculture, the pyramids, antibiotics, the Sistene Chapel, antiseptic medicine, modern commerce, American colonization and independence, modern manufacturing, the end of child labor, and little girls being able to eat ice cream?
