Headed to Medicine Hat (home of the in-laws) for the Giving of Thanks weekend. Took some homebrew down, as did my newly-into-homebrewing brother-in-law (well, sort of – he lives in B.C. and uses a brew-on-premises, but it’s a start). However, my father-in-law’s anchor beer is Coop Classic Premium Ale, and so there were a number of those in his fridge as well.

For those of you who don’t know that beer, it is brewed by Big Rock exclusively for the Coop Liquor Stores in Alberta. It sells for just over a buck a beer, firmly ensconcing it in the discount category. It is a fairly boring, inoffensive beer that neither sparkles nor insults. It is light amber with a soft toffee malt and virtually no hops. It is fine for casual sipping during a pre-supper game of bridge (when one’s attentions are on cards, not beer).

I mention this because there happened to be both cans and bottles of the beer in the fridge. I instantly grabbed the opportunity to  set up a quick beer vs. can tasting to see if in a light-bodied, straightforward beer whether any taste difference could be detected between them. I have been threatening to do this for ages – Yukon has always been my desired target as they are available in cans, bottles and on tap – but simply haven’t gotten around to it.

We poured each into identical glasses and sampled, ensuring the beer were at same serving temperature and handled in the same way. I couldn’t confirm that they were from the same batch (the bottle had no batch code on it and the box was recycled). My father-in-law reported that the can was purchased about a month earlier than the bottle, suggesting to me that they were NOT the same batch – thus throwing the scientific accuracy in doubt, but still allowing for a reasonable test.

And I can report that I did taste a difference. It was slight, but the bottled version seemed slightly more rounded. The can presented a bit sharper in palate. The difference was subtle enough that my two co-evaluators did not detect it.

I am not going to rush to any conclusions here, but it is still interesting to report. The fuller taste of the bottle could be 100% due to the beer being fresher. A beer as delicate as this one would likely display aging characteristics fairly quickly – and it is plausible the canned version was up to two months older than the bottle. That might be long enough for that subtle difference to appear.

I realize that this particular round of testing resolves absolutely nothing on the can vs. bottle debate, but it was the beer highlight of my weekend. Plus science always builds in small increments. Consider this just another data point for consideration.