Pittsburgh Innovates

Alcoa has done it again, introducing the world to the latest in aluminum, the "vented wide mouth" can. An ice cold beer has never been so smooth.

An invention of the Alcoa Technology Center in Upper Burrell, the wide mouth joins a litany of highlights in Alcoa's history beginning with the world's first aluminum can. Then there was the first pull-top tab in 1962, the first aluminum bottle in North America and, of course, the ubiquitious foil and the high tech aluminum coating that helps the U.S. Air Force's Stealth bomber to fly invisibly under enemy radar.

Alcoa, Ball Corp. and Coors Brewing Company collaborated on the development of the vented wide mouth, which promises beer drinking consumers a smoother pour and a draft-like experience right out of the can by reducing the vacuum. The secret lies in a vent tube that opens when the wider pull-top is pulled, directing air behind the liquid as it pours.

“When you pour something out of a traditional can, the first bit isn't as smooth as the end of it when the air is able to get into the can,” explains company spokesman Kevin Lowry. “It’s another innovation in aluminum packaging created at Alcoa.”

The company, with corporate headquarters on the North Shore, has 97,000 employees in 34 countries and has been named one of the top most sustainable corporations in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.