Leading international beer brands Heineken (www.heineken.com) and Amstel (www.amstel.com) are now available in four litre PET kegs in The Netherlands. The new “Tapje” small draft-beer system was developed together with APPE (Wrexham / UK; www.appepackaging.com), formerly Artenius PET Packaging, a member of Spanish PET giant La Seda de Barcelona (Barcelona; www.laseda.es), which supplies the kegs. The breweries plan to launch the new system in other countries as well.

The PET container is said to be an innovative cost-effective alternative to traditional beer crates. It features APPE’s “monoBLOX” barrier technology with oxygen scavengers, which guarantee a robust container with what the Wrexham-based company calls “superior barrier performance that protects the integrity of the beer by keeping out oxygen whilst keeping in the carbonation”. Once open, the beer reportedly remains fresh for 30 days.

The Tapje system can be used after cooling it for 10 hours in a refrigerator or using a special beer cooler that cuts the time to just one hour. Regardless of which technique is employed, a coloured indicator in front of the key will indicate when the beer has reached the proper temperature for consumption. Earlier this year, Czech packaging manufacturer Petainer (Aš; www.petainer.com) introduced its new, one-way use keg made entirely of PET – see Plasteurope.com of 09.03.2011.