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The first hint of beverage can printing goes all the way back to 1909, but it was not until 1935 before the first beer were sold in a can. A brewery in the United States inquired American Can Company about the possibility of packaging their beer in cans. American Can Company is a member of the Tin Can Trust and “controlled a large percentage of business in the United States in tin cans, containers, and packages of tin.” They failed to produce a successful can. In 1931, American Can Company began to experiment the possibility of beer cans again due to their anticipation on the ending of the Prohibition period. The major obstacle in producing beer cans was that no current cans can withstand the excess pressure that was required in packaging beer. "After two years of research, American Can had overcome the problems of pressure and had developed a coating for the inside of the can to stop the beer reacting with the tinplate." Now that they developed a successful tin can for packaging beer, American Can Company had to pitch their innovation to breweries, which was hard since this was such a different form of packaging at the time. The larger breweries in the United States “did not want to risk their reputations on such a radical innovation.” A smaller brewery, Gottfried Krueger Brewery, located at Newark, NJ, was in really bad shape due to the Prohibition and death of the founder, and American Can Company offered the canning equipment for free unless it became successful, so they decided to give the beer cans a try. The test results were extremely successful and on January 24, 1935, the first canned beer hit the public market as “Krueger’s Finest Beer. “By the end of 1935, no less than 37 US breweries were producing canned beer. Felinfoel Brewery Company, located at Llanelli, Wales, became the first brewery outside the United States to sell canned beer, and it was also a success. The package for this beer was called a “conetop.” The interest in canned beer suddenly grew so fast that by 1937, 23 breweries were producing 40 brands of canned beer. The World War II temporarily stopped this innovation until 1952. By this point, most breweries were using flat top cans instead. From the 1950s to the 1960s, all beer can were composed from three pieces of metal. Two-piece cans hit the market in 1974. Throughout the years, innovative ideas and development slowly changed the beer can into what it is today. According to Ball Corporation, beer cans weighed 83 grams in 1951, and was then reduced to 38 grams by 1974, to what it is now today at only 21 grams. Coors examined many can coating curing methods and decided to implement an ultraviolet system, which they started to do in 1975. Coors is the only manufacturer to use the UV curing method in the United States. In 1986, they made further innovations to their UV coating lines to increase flexibility and efficiency. ==How It Relates== Beer cans have been printed with colored photographic images since 1956, “first was famous Scottish and English landmarks and then with pinup girls,” called the Lager Lovelies. These cans were popular all over the world. Extensive testing has been done with four color printing on the beers, but every attempt proved unsuccessful. Metal Box Company, a United Kingdom company, developed a method called “Reprotherm” for two-piece cans. In this process, the image to be printed is transferred to the can through a printed medium. Recently, a company called Nacano developed a six color printing method for two-piece cans, “but the first cans to be produced by this process have looked faded and washed out.” Currently, over 60 countries around the world are producing canned beer in every shape and size. In this book, we will explore a newer printing technology for beer cans that utilizes Ultraviolet curable ink and coating. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Beverage can printing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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