That will change in late July or early August when the Eddyline Brewery in Buena Vista becomes the first craft beer maker in the state to roll out sixteen-ounce tallboys.
"That will be part of our niche," says Eddyline head brewer Scott Kimball. "The market is so competitive, you have to differentiate yourself somehow."
Several well-known craft brewers across the country already use sixteen-ounce cans, including New York's Brooklyn Brewing, Surly Brewing in Minnesota, Tallgrass in Kansas, Nevada's Buckbean Brewing and Sun King in Indiana.
Eddyline, which was founded in 2009, is undergoing a major expansion, moving its brewing operation to a larger facility in Buena Vista, where it will open a tasting room and operate a wood-fired pizza oven. Its current location will remain as a restaurant.
The brewery, which makes beers with outdoor-themed names like Drag Bag Lager, Crank Yanker IPA and Kickin' Back Amber, is also ditching its three-barrel brewing system for a much larger ten-barrel system, which will provide beer for Buena Vista and for its sister restaurant in Socorro, New Mexico.The canning line will come from Boulder-based Wild Goose Engineering, which broke into the business late last year when it provided a system for its former Boulder business park neighbor Upslope Brewing. Earlier this week, Wild Goose delivered a line to Breckenridge Brewing and plans to deliver a system to Aspen Brewing as well.
Eddyline's canning machine will be able to do thirty cans a minute -- meaning the brewery should be able to provide the Arkansas River Valley and eventually Denver and Colorado Springs with plenty of tallboy six-packs. Kimball says the six-packs will be priced about the same as a sixer of twelve-ounce cans from other craft breweries.
"If you are going camping or on a river trip, you might as well take tallboys because they all crush the same, and you get more beer that way," he adds.
