“It was like gun shots ringing out from the warehouse,” said an anonymous employee of a distributor as an entire pallet of beer popped can by can. The brewery didn’t assume responsibility but instead blamed the distributor for excessive temperatures in storage.
At a retail location, distended and ruptured cans from another brewery were strewn across the floor of a window display, having fallen from their shelves. Sunlight exposure and excessive temperatures were again blamed for the misfortune. What causes exploding beer cans? Will a rise in temperature alone create enough pressure for a can to burst?
Can Integrity and Fill Volume
Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas is very soluble in beer, but as the temperature increases, gas solubility decreases. In other words, when a beer warms, it loses carbonation because the gas comes out of the beer. In a closed container, the CO2 has nowhere to go but the headspace of the can; thus the pressure increases.