MEGA MUSEUM EXHIBITS NEARLY 90 YEARS OF BEER CAN HISTORY

The MEGA Museum in A Coruña is currently exhibiting 87 years of beer can history. The exhibition has been baptized with the title ‘Beer cans. Un viaje de ida… y vuelta’ is the first temporary exhibition of MEGA, the Estrella Galicia Museum in A Coruña.

This exhibition brings together iconic examples of beer cans, including the first beer can in history, which the American company Gottfried Krueger marketed in 1935 under the trade name ‘Krueger Cream Ale’. They began by manufacturing a drum with a capacity of almost one liter, in order to be able to take their product further and initially produced only 2,000 units. In the face of massive customer support, that same year they sold 35 million cans.

Another of the iconic cans that can be seen in the aforementioned exhibition is the ‘Coronation Beer’, the can made on the occasion of the coronation of King George VI of England in 1937, of which only two copies are preserved in the world. Among the curiosities is that the can still has the beer inside. Precisely, the Polytechnic University of Valencia has proposed to drill a hole in the container to check the state of the liquid 85 years later.

There are also cans that were consumed during World War II. They were designed not to glow so as not to be seen by the enemy when soldiers in the trenches consumed them. The first can marketed in Spain was in 1966 with the ‘Skol International Lager’.

MEGA’s director, Rodrigo Burgos, highlights that visitors can learn about the historical curiosities of the container. “The first ones were metal bottles, with a metal neck and cap. For a while they had to be opened with a can opener, but over their nearly nine-decade history, the cans evolved so that they could be taken anywhere and were easy to open,” he adds.

For Burgos, the message is clear: sustainability. He also added that they intend to give MEGA “a dynamic experience space” by highlighting the value of the brewing heritage. On the other hand, the director of the Association Cans of Drinks, Juan Ramón Meléndez adds that this project has two aims: “to spread the virtues of the can and to promote his recycling since the can can can be recycled integrally”.

He also explained how the can has evolved to “adapt to the needs of society”, since in the 1930s they were looking for a lightweight container that would not break, but then they thought of a can that was easy to open so that people could take it to the beach or for sports.

The exhibition is divided into two parts, in the first one you can see a dozen historical cans and thirteen different bottles of Estrella Galicia that reflect its evolution, and in the second one the return trip. The first part compiles all the cans of Galician beer, from the first one, produced in 1979, to the present day, including curious proposals such as the Sargadelos ceramic can. Although they have always had the same capacity, 33 centiliters, their weight has evolved from the initial 82 grams to the current 13 grams.

It is the first temporary exhibition hosted by this venue, the only museum in Spain dedicated to beer culture, and can be visited until August 31.