| By Full Sail
Full Sail’s New Canning Line is Up and Running
Full Sail is canning ridiculously tasty craft beer like crazy with the recent installation of their top-of-the-line Krones Craftmate can filler.
“The market has moved in the direction of cans,” says Collin Godkin, Full Sail’s director of brewery operations. “We’ve wanted to get into cans for some time, but ten years ago there just wasn’t a craft version of the high-quality can fillers the big breweries were using. The advent of that was key for us.”
Filling at the rate of 250 cans per minute, the Full Sail brewery’s canning line can handle its own Session and Full Sail brands, as well as take on contract brewing from other breweries looking to outsource their canning to keep up with this market trend.
“It’s an exciting time to be at Full Sail, navigating new water, breaking the mold and figuring out new territory,” says Godkin about the new canning line, contract canning and upcoming innovations. The 21-year Full Sail veteran and newly appointed director of brewery operations moved to the Gorge in the 90s because he had heard you could windsurf and ski – in the same day – and hasn’t looked back since. Overseeing maintenance and plant operations, along with the new canning system, Godkin has grown with Full Sail and grown his own family in Hood River, just a few blocks from the brewery. His favorite beer in a can? The award-winning Session Premium Lager, a perfect way to toast to Full Sail, Session and the new Krones canning line.