Marshall Wharf Brewing in Belfast, whose beer previously had been available only on draft at select bars and from growlers at the brewery, is now canning some of its beer.

The cans will be sold first on Saturday at Marshall Wharf’s 5th Anniversary of Beer, being held under heated tents in the parking lot of the brewery and its affiliated Three Tides Restaurant.

David Carlson, co-owner and brewer, had said earlier that the cans would be sold sometime during the summer.

“The canning thing has been dragging and dragging and dragging and dragging,” Carlson said. “Then we had to go through installation and training with their techs out of Calgary, Alberta. Their analysis says that sealing is the most complicated part – getting the lead seamed to the top of the can. So we spent two days practicing filling the cans, and then tearing them down and making adjustments.”

Carlson said the big push to go into cans was due to recent changes allowing generic cans, giving the name of the brewery and other information, but no information about the specific beer. The beer name, percent alcohol by volume and a UPC code will be printed on a label that will be stuck onto the can. The UPC code is required so the cans’ deposit can be tracked.

“It used to be the minimum order to do a batch of cans was 80,000,” Carlson said. “When looking at a profile in which we had to commit to one of our beers, Illegal Ale-Ien say, we would have to sell 80,000 cans of it, which would take about a year, before we could do something else.”

He still has to order the 80,000 cans — with a price tag of about $30,000 when shipping and other fees are included — but he can switch varieties as much as he wants.

Carlson said he is committed — and it says so right on the generic can — to brewing a 200-gallon batch of beer each week for canning, which will amount to about 1,600 16-ounce cans. The beer will not be available at every supermarket and corner beer store.

“We self-distribute,” Carlson said. “I am actually doing all of the driving myself now as we get our inventory up.”

He said his plan is to drop off the cans to beer stores on the same trips he makes each week to deliver kegs to bars in a triangle, with Bangor, Bar Harbor and Kittery at the corners.

He said he expects the Portland stores that will be getting his beer will be Downeast Beverage on Commercial Street and the Bier Cellar on Forest Avenue because they are small enough to handle a limited product like his and because he drives by the shops on his weekly bar runs.

“We will be using social media, Facebook and Twitter, to announce on a weekly basis what we have canned and where we are going to be,” Carlson said. “Let’s say that I deliver to Portland on a Wednesday, which I usually do, and someone comes in on Saturday and there is no Marshall Wharf. With a regular store, the clerk might say, ‘I don’t know, Marshall Wharf must not have their act together.’ “

With a smaller store, the clerks know that the shipment has sold out.

And I am guessing it will sell out often. I enjoy Marshall Wharf beers a lot but seldom get to Belfast to buy growlers. If it is on tap at a bar I am visiting, I order it. I order Oxbow for the same reason, and have a decision problem if a bar has both.

The cans will give me more of a chance to drink Marshall Wharf.

Carlson says he is not sure yet what he will charge for a 16-ounce can of his beer because he is not sure how much labor will be involved in canning. The price will vary based on the level of alcohol, because higher-alcohol beers take more ingredients and longer to brew. But he expects it will be in the same price range as bottles of Maine Beer and Rising Tide.

He expects to improve efficiency by having people working at the brewery store — where there is often some down time — applying the labels to the cans.

The anniversary party Saturday will run from 5 to 11 p.m. and include more than 30 Marshall Wharf beers, including some made with fresh hops and others aged in barrels from the Bowmore Scotch company, as a result of a trip the Marshall Wharf staff made to Scotland over the summer.

Tickets will cost $30 and include a tasting glass and 10 8-ounce pours, with music provided by Toughcats. Information is available at marshallwharf.com.

Carlson said last year’s anniversary drew about 600 people, but he thinks the number could hit 800 this year because there has been increased interest.

So I would have a can to photograph and test out, Carlson left an unlabeled can of Illegal Ale-Ien for me when he made last week’s deliver to Novare Res in Portland. Illegal Ale-Ien is a hybrid kolsch brewed with blue agave nectar, coming in at 8 percent alcohol.

All four people who split this can liked it a lot. It was light and crisp, despite the high alcohol content, and the agave nectar added just a bit of sweetness and spice.

Tom Atwell is a freelance writer living in Cape Elizabeth. He can be contacted at 767-2297 or at:

tomatwell@me.com