E-Malt.com News article: 3132

USA: Pittsburgh Brewing Co., which pioneered the snap-top can and the twist off, re-sealable bottle cap, will stop bottling its flagship Iron City Beer in glass bottles in favor of a new aluminum bottle made at a growing Mercer County factory.

It will make the announcement today at the landmark Lawrenceville brewery, where officials are counting the new eye-popping packaging to fuel growth at one of the nation's few remaining regional breweries.

In recent days, teaser billboards have gone up around the city with the red backdrop of the Iron City logo replaced with the tagline "Save Our City" that will eventually be replaced with a campaign to herald the new bottles.

With the brewery about a month away from a Sept. 30 deadline to make a $3.5 million payment to the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority in order to prevent its water supply from being terminated, the 143-year-old company may be playing on hometown sympathies in an effort to improve its market share.

The "Save Our City" campaign was devised by Smith Brothers Advertising, which developed the successful campaign for IC Light featuring plastic six-pack rings overlaid on the toned mid-sections of attractive models, with the tagline "Great taste: Less Waist."

Lindsey Smith, one of three brothers who founded the agency, declined comment on the campaign Monday, as did Pittsburgh Brewing.

Pittsburgh Brewing teamed with Alcoa Inc. in 1962 to develop the snap-top can. Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery, who will participate in today's news conference, declined to comment.

CCL Container Corp., a subsidiary of CCL Industries Inc., of Toronto, will make the bottles at its can manufacturing plant in Hermitage, Mercer County. The plant, which employs 185, specializes in aerosol cans, which it makes for companies such as consumer products giant Procter & Gambel.

It has sold aluminum cans to other beverage companies, including Snapple Beverage Group, for which it makes cans for the Mistic RE and Elements brands, which are said to be the first mainstream beverage products to be sold in impact-extruded aluminum bottles in North America.

The bottles have been popular in Japan for several years, where consumers can buy Coca-Cola products and beer from the nation's two largest breweries in the new packaging.

Ed Martin, CCL's vice president of sales and marketing, said Pittsburgh Brewing's effort marks the first time a brewing company will take an entire product line and shift it from glass to aluminum bottles.

Heineken has tested a green aluminum bottle in Europe, and is test marketing it in the United States.

"It's a pretty bold move," he said, adding that the cost of the aluminum bottles is nearly triple that of glass. "But with our existing customers, we're finding that the packaging drives consumption."

John Ghaznavi, chief executive of Glenshaw Glass Co. in Shaler, which makes glass bottles for Pittsburgh Brewing, said the brewery has yet to reduce the amount of glass bottles it has on order.

Ghaznavi said for his company, Pittsburgh Brewing is an "insignificant" customer compared to the Yuengling brewery in Pottsville, Schuylkill County.

Brian Masters, of Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale -- the city's largest beer wholesaler, which does not distribute Pittsburgh Brewing products -- said he's not worried about losing market share to the new Iron City aluminum bottle.

"I have a lot of respect for (Pittsburgh Brewing). They're a good regional brewery, but you can put it in a gold bottle, and it's still Iron City and will have limited market presence."

Mark Goda, CCL's director of aluminum container research and development, said the new can's "shelf presence" will justify its greater cost.

Although the initial Iron City bottle will have a crown cap, Goda said CCL is working on developing a resealable cap, as it has done for Snapple.

Bjorn Nabozney, co-founder of Big Sky Brewing Co., a microbrewery in Missoula, Mont., which has sold some of its Moose Drool Brown Ale and Scape Goat Pale Ale in an aluminum bottle, said he believes such bottles are the "future of beer packaging."

"It gets colder faster and stays colder longer, and it's a lot lighter than glass," he said, adding that it prevents light from degrading the beer's freshness.

Nabozney is hoping more breweries switch to the aluminum bottle, which will drive down the cost.

His cost per bottle is about 50 cents, compared to about 15 cents for glass, although he said the volumes at which Pittsburgh Brewing will be buying will allow its costs to be somewhat lower.

Joseph Piccirilli, Pittsburgh Brewing's president, recently spoke optimistically about the company's future, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review he expects production to reach about 500,000 barrels this year, up from about 420,000 in 2003. The company employs about 220 people.

"We are doing very well and will continue to focus on our brands," he said.


24 August, 2004