The Man Who Made Canned Craft Beer Cool
By: 
CN: For a long time, Oskar Blues was able to stand out as the "craft beer in a can." It was easy to spot and easy to market. Now that cans have become a hot trend and are more commonplace do you feel you've lost any sort of competitive advantage?
DK: I think there is two answers to that. Even though we were the first one, through the years we’ve watched other breweries get on board and we’ve opened our doors and helped as many people as we can. I think we’ve helped anyone who has called and said, “hey, I want to do this, what do you think?” That is our attitude to this day, that the more people that get into this category and help the category and do a good job, the better off we’ll be because it will legitimize what we are doing. The other side of that, do I think people are picking up cans of Sierra Nevada or other beers in a can other than mine? Sure, of course. But our trends are up 50 to 60 percent every year and that's enough for us. I don’t need to rule the world, and I don’t need to be the largest brewery in the world, and I don’t even need to be the largest canning brewing in the world. We just want to build a good, sustainable business that’s fun and I think that’s our mission, our goal.
-By Tom Rotunno, CNBC Senior Editor
Questions? Comments? Email us at consumernation@cnbc.com. Follow Tom Rotunno on Twitter @tomrotunno.
