Charlie, I don’t like cans because of the liner, but I don’t like oxygen in a growler more. My concern is with chemicals from the liner leeching into the beer over time. A crowler holds twice as much beer with only 45% more can than a 16oz can, so there’s less liner per ounce of beer.
We bottle once a month, which means that bottles tend to be out in the market for anywhere from a week to two months. I’d start to get concerned about the liner after about a month. I guess I expect that someone buying a crowler will drink it within a month.
Neither bottles nor cans are perfect. Bottles add shipping weight and can break. Cans have that pesky liner, are more sensitive to heat (less mass), and require me to buy 8 to 10 pallets of printed can blanks for each beer we make that I have to store somewhere (for that reason bottles are better for limited release beers). For production bottling/canning, I prefer bottles. For Tap Room one-offs, I prefer cans.