Everyday, Mike Horn is surrounded by cans of beer.
Everyday, Mike Horn is surrounded by cans of beer.
But he’s not collecting cans or drinking them, (well maybe sometimes) he’s driving them to breweries and filling them up with their craft brews.
Horn runs Old Dominion Mobile Canning, a mobile beer canning business out of Ashland that works with breweries in Virginia and North Carolina that are interested in canning their beers, but may not necessarily be able to afford their own canning line.
Always a craft beer lover, initially Horn was thinking of opening a small brewery, so about six years ago he started homebrewing.
“I was curious how that stuff works,” Horn said.
After looking into startup costs of opening and operating a brewery, Horn decided that might not be for him, but after a trip up north a few years ago, a light bulb went on.
“As we were touring breweries back in 2012 in New Jersey where we vacation, we just took a break and {i was} reading articles on craft beer and there’s this mobile canning business in San Francisco, the Can Van,” Horn said. “Okay, {I thought} I can’t start my million dollar brewery, butt I can do something unique and really learn a lot about brewing along the way.”
He contacted Can Van for some advice, but to no avail they weren’t that helpful. Determined, Horn did some more research and reached out to the only other mobile beer canning operation at the time which was in Colorado.
They started talking and the Colorado canning operaton was interested in an affiliation so in a matter of three weeks, Horn became an affiliate of Mobile Canning Systems of Boulder Colorado and formed his business in September 2012. He leased his space off Lewistown Road in Ashland in February of 2013 and started canning in April. Previously, Horn worked for Capital One for almost seven years in IT, but quit his job as soon as he started the canning business.
The craft beer market can no longer be described as booming at this point, it has become a movement. But canned beer has long been viewed as the red-headed step child of the beer family and thought of only when it comes to cheap lagers such as beloved hipster drink, PBR.
But recently, canned craft beer is starting to catch on, and mobile canning while still fairly new, is starting to pop up.
There are under 20 in the United States, and Horn said he was about the third or fourth person in the country to start a mobile beer canning business.
Most belong to mobile canning systems and they all have designated territories.
“I have Virginia and about half of North Carolina,” he said. “There’s are no other mobile canners in this area.”
Horn has canned for Hardywood, Lickinghole Creek, Wild Wolf, Blue Mountain Brewery, Bold Rock and Weeping Radish in Grandy, North Carolina and to date, has canned close to 5 million beers.
They’re actively canning for 12 breweries in Viginia and North Carolina. Horn added they will start canning for another eight to ten between now and spring which will include more Richmond breweries.
Old Dominion Canning usually only cans for one brewery a day. They store empty cans for breweries at their AShland location and ship them there, or if breweries already have their own cans then they just show up and start the process.
“Some breweries don’t have enough space for cans so we keep them here,” he said. “The guys {employees} get here around 6 am, we have the truck loaded up the night before, and hit the road. They could be down in Raleigh, they could be down the street at Hardywood.”
Old Dominion Mobile Canning can carry 24 barrels worth of cans which is between 5,000 and 7,000 cans along with the canning equipment.
Once arriving at the brewery, Old Dominion Canning unloads the cans off a truck. They have a portable beer canning system that they bring into the brewery that they set up right next to the brewery’s tanks.
Horn said they are usually pulling beer from the tanks about 10 to 15 feet away. They run a sanitiation process to clean the cans, they do some test cans, then they start canning.
If the beer is cold and carbonated right, Horn said they are able to can 40 cans a minute. The canning proceeds at a rate of six to seven barrels per hour.
Old Dominion Mobile Canning has canned three beers for Hardywood including the Great Return, their cream ale, and Capital Trail Pale Ale. The beer canning operation has also canned Lickinghole’s beers Magic Beaver and Until Sunset.
Check out the videos below to see how the process is down:
Old Dominion Canning can fill both 12 and 16 oz cans, and provides lids.
And despite canned beer being looked down upon in the past, there are quite a few benefits to canning beer especially for the smaller breweries.
“It’s still a very expensive business to get into, Horn said. “If a brewery were to buy a canning line they’re going to spend half a million dollars minimum. This way they can make their beer and we can handle the packaging for them.”
The beers stay fresher longer and cans are better for the environment.
“No light can get in there, no air leaks in through the top,” he said. “A cork will let air in and the tops you pop off of bottles they also let air in, a can isn’t going to let any air in.”
Cans also cool down faster than any other beverage container resulting in fresher, better tasting beer according to Horn.
With the amount of clients coming on next year, Horn said they might have to add on a third canning line. Their first canning line was named “MC Canner” and in the summer of 2014 they added a second line, “Candice”.
“Every year we’ve experienced tremendous growth,” he said. “It’s going to be a very busy 2016.”
Horn said next year he also plans to start doing business with coffee houses and wineries.
