fairly simple question:
will a beer stay cooler for a longer period of time in a can or a bottle…?
is it different in wind or direct sunlight?
Wind shouldn’t make a difference.
My practical experience (and I’ve drank a lot of beer) is that beer in a bottle stays cooler longer. If you drink it from the can fast enough, it doesn’t really matter. Also, beer in a can cools faster, so if you can only get warm beer sometimes it’s worth more to get it cold faster than worry about how fast it gets warm again.
Light bottles, though, can cause a beer to go skunk really fast (light does that to beer). Stick to the dark bottles if you’re going to the beach. Of course “no glass” rules may bounce you right back to the cans.
Aluminum conducts heat more readily than glass. Therefore, you can cool canned beer more quickly than bottled beer. However, for the same reason, canned beer warms more quickly than bottled beer. Of course, you pour either one into a glass (since the alternative is barbarism), so unless you’re buying beer for immediate drinking (in the next hour or two), it should make no practical difference.
Interestingly, there is presently an overwhelming consumer preference for bottled beer, despite the fact that it’s usually more expensive for the same product.
I like bottles almost solely because I can see what’s in the container. The ol’ paranoia, don’t you know…
Beer in a brown bottle goes skunk a lot slower than beer in a green bottle and a helluva lot slower than in ordinary bottles.
What kind of crap do you drink that “ordinary” isn’t dark? 
Samuel Smith’s ships most of their beer in clear bottles. Which wouldn’t be so much of a problem if it were a big seller like Budweiser. However, it stays on the shelf for so long in that clear bottle that it often goes skunky, which is a waste.
Other beers sold in clear bottles: Becks (in the Bahamas) and Kalik (yuummmm!!)
No light can get thru a can
I buy cans since if I drank bottled beer I’d throw my back out taking the trash out.
Good observation about Sam Rex. That would evplain why it always had such a foul taste every time I tried it. I figured a beer with that much hype couldn’t taste like that on purpose.
If you have a beer in a can on a warm day it winds up tasting like the can, unless you drink it almost immediately. I prefer my beer without a metallic aftertaste.
While I would agree that wind would have about the same effect on cans & bottles, wind does make a difference to the colling/heating rate. Wind will add heat to the can or bottle at a faster rate (when compared to no wind) when air temperature > beer temperature. Wind will remove heat from the can or bottle at a faster rate (when compared to no wind) when air temperature < beer temperature.