Buckbean Brewing’s coming to Florida is in the can

Buckbean Brewing Company announced today that it will start selling its craft beer in Florida.

The Reno, Nevada, craft brewery is one of the few in the country that exclusively cans its product.

Doug Booth, Buckbean owner and president, said that all three of the brewery’s year-round beers will be shipped to Florida, and he expects them to arrive in about 30 days, depending on the distributor’s timetable. Those beers are: Original Orange Blossom Ale, Tule Duck Red Ale, and Black Noddy Lager (which won a bronze medal at the 2008 Great American Beer Festival). The beer will be available in kegs and four-packs of 16 oz. cans, Booth said.

“We’ve been wanting to go to Florida for a while because of Orange Blossom Ales,” Booth said, referring to the fact that the orange blossom is the official flower of the Sunshine State.

Booth said Buckbean currently distributes in Nevada, California, Tennessee and the Maryland-D.C. area, and will be going to Arizona soon. Orlando-based Micro Beverages will be the Florida distributor.

The move into Florida will likely cover the area from Tallahassee down to Southwest Florida, and across to Jacksonville on the east coast, and possibly down to the Palm Beach area, though Booth said he’s hasn’t seen Micro Beverage’s final distribution maps.

Buckbean does not plan to create any jobs in Florida right away, letting the distributor handle the initial introduction of its brews.

“I will be the one to come out there, to help them out,” Booth said. “Our goal is to eventually hire a rep to cover the area that is out there.”

Booth thinks canned craft beer will be a great fit for Florida’s beaching and boating community.

“It takes less space, cools off faster, and there’s no breakage,” he said.

Buckbean also sponsors the annual CanFest in Reno that features canned craft beers from various breweries across the country. The 2010 festival was named one of the Top 10 Fall Beer Festivals by Road Trips for Beer.

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