Award winners

The winners of the first “Canny Awards,” which recognized craft beer cans with high-quality, captivating graphics, were announced during the Craft Brewers Conference, May 2-5 in San Diego. The Craft Can of the Year award went to Bitter American Extra Pale Ale by 21st Amendment Brewery, with second place going to The Corruption IPA by DC Brau, and third place to Johnny’s America IPA by Moab Brewery.

Patriotic packaging

Through mid-July, Budweiser is showcasing patriotic packaging. Bottles, cans and secondary packaging feature the brand’s signature bowtie along with stars and stripes gleaned from the American flag. The limited-edition packaging is available in 8-, 12-, 16- and 24-ounce cans and in 12-ounce glass bottles, 16-ounce plastic bottles and 16-ounce aluminum bottles. The new design supports a summer initiative in which the brand will contribute a portion of all sales through July 7 to help raise as much as $2.5 million for the Folds of Honor Foundation, which provides post-secondary educational scholarships for families of U.S. military personnel killed or disabled while in service.

Aluminum collaboration

Oskar Blues Brewery and Sun King Brewing Co. collaborated to introduce Chaka, a limited-release handcrafted Belgian-style ale brewed by both companies and packaged in branded 16-ounce resealable Alumi-Tek bottles supplied by Ball Corp.

Bold tagline and graphics

Killer Buzz energy drinks, now known as KLR BZ, were redesigned with new graphics that correspond with its new tagline, “Stick that in a can and drink it.” Brushed aluminum cans with black core colors and bold varietal colors help to differentiate the drinks among its competitors, the company says. Each flavor features a bold color, and the top of each can features the core black color with a brightly colored tab. Along with the packaging updates, the brand launched three new flavors and the updated name, which is laser-etched on the cans.

Between Drinks Coming to a bottle near you

This summer, Medea vodka will roll out a new option on its ultra-premium spirit’s packaging: a 2.4-inch built-in LCD screen. Each bottle comes pre-loaded with videos and photos, but customers also will have the ability to upload whatever they’d like via a rechargeable USB with 1 gigabyte of memory. The Medea Observe bottle is available in liquor stores nationwide for $249.