The New and (Maybe) Improved Beverage Containers

(Time) - Beverage manufacturers just keep on inventing new bottles and cans—and growlers and pouches and “Vinis”—to hold beer, wine, and other drinks.

This summer, your beverage of choice may come in an innovative new container that makes the drink fresher and tastier. Then again, the vessel’s main innovation could just be that it’s more eye-catching than the usual lineup of bottles and cans. Here are a few of the beverage industry’s latest packaging creations:

Beer

There’s been something of a renaissance in beer can innovations lately, with craft beers rolling out special cans that supposedly give beer fresher taste and Budweiser’s “bowtie” can design, which doesn’t affect the taste but sure does look weird. Budweiser manufacturer Anheuser-Busch InBev has also started testing a Bud Light Vented Can, which allows the drinker to pop open a second hole on top for “a smoother pour with less ‘glug.’” And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the company will be introducing a new bottle for Bud Light Platinum: It’ll be aluminum and feature a top that twists off and is re-closeable: The design supposedly gets beer colder faster, and, like a soda bottle, the beer should be able to retain its fizz longer if the drinker twists the top back on in between swigs.

In the craft beer world, meanwhile, the hottest beverage container is the growler, a jug-like vessel made to hold beer that’s poured straight from the keg and keep it fresh for days, if not weeks. A stretch of breweries and stores in Columbus, Ohio, has been nicknamed “growler alley” because of the number of spots where growlers filled with craft beer can be purchased by takeout customers. A bill expected to be made into law in Michigan will allow bars and restaurants to sell growlers to to-go customers. And in the craft beer haven of Colorado, reports the Denver Post, brewers are one-upping each other with growlers of all shapes, sizes, and designs—including stainless steel growlers and growlers that are specially capped and carbonated to retain their freshness for more than a month.