8 Wired are looking to move the needle with the launch of a 500ml can, an IPA called — appropriately — Tallboy.

This has been in the pipeline at 8 Wired for a while and owner Soren Eriksen agreed “it’s been a long time coming”.

“The turning point was the ability to actually get 500ml cans. We’ve been trying to get them for years from the duopoly [Visy and Orora], and it just hasn’t been possible.

“Well, you could always get them, but we’d have buy a full run of them, which is a quarter of a million, the last time I checked.”

The entry of newcomer Recorp has changed the rules and made it easier for smaller breweries to try new ideas.

“They have smaller minimum quantities for printed cans which is really handy.”

Eriksen said the perceived value of the 500ml can was appealing because they look so much bigger on the shelves than their 440ml rivals.

But he also wanted a call back to the “good old days of the 500ml glass bottles — having a vessel that actually fills a pint glass is nice”.

“If there’s not that many 500ml cans in the market, then if we sit on the shelf next to 440s, it’ll physically look bigger, which should attract some eyes, we hope.”

Originally Eriksen wanted to put Hopwired into 500ml cans but that beer is now “fully ensconced in the 440 format so it would just be too much of a hassle trying to change that now”.

The artwork very different from recent 8 Wired branding, with a retro Americana look circa 1950s and 60s.

“That was a conscious choice for the retro aspect.”

Eriksen said the team were worried — given all the “weird” stuff happening in America right now — that it might be too American.

“We almost changed it at the last minute just because of that but we decided not to bring politics into things.”

8 Wired has other 500ml releases plan, including putting it’s double IPA Superconductor into the format “just to create some waves — I haven’t calculated it, but it must be around 4.5 standard drinks in a 500ml!”

Meanwhile, Eriksen confirmed the potential sale of the business is now off the table until the economy picks up.

“We just going to take a few more years and wait for better times,” he said.

“It feels like, even the economy aside, that after Covid, people have gotten used to not going out so much. It definitely seems like in our industry that it’s the on-premise business that is down.

“Our keg sales are down on pre-Covid numbers whereas everything else is up.”