A lot of brewers got creative over the pandemic, coming up with multiple ways to create revenue as constant changes had everyone navigating through every move. Rae Norton, from Savanah, Georgia, combined two things she loves — craft beer and gardening. She began to go through her collection of empty brew cans removing the tops, drilling holes in the bottom and adding succulents from her own garden. By creating these innovative plant containers, she created Open Container SAV.

Norton worked at Eagle Creek Brewing while she was a student and it was here where she realized the process it took to make craft beer.

“I was part of a crew, real camaraderie, and saw how the brewers worked to solve problems,” said Norton. “I learned the creativity that goes into making a heavily fruited smoothie-style sour beer. And the packaging, the label designs are real art created by artists.”

Last June she relocated to Savannah and started working at Two Tides Brewing Co. where she began collecting some of their beer cans.

“I’ve always been a gardener,” said Norton. “And my idea was if I could combine these unique cans with a plant, it would be one way to preserve this short-run piece of art.”

Norton then started to curate her own soil, which includes a combination of peat moss, sand, and worm castings, a mixture well-suited for sustaining succulents in small spaces. 

Norton currently works at Service Brewing where she works as part of the creative team and continues collecting cans. She grows rows of succulents on her screened-in porch and keeps on building her business.

Photos courtesy of Open Container SAV