breweries that only fill their own growlers

ran into this issue at RRBC where they have a policy of only filling RRBC branded growlers. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but thought it was pretty silly. Didn’t run into this problem at Hill Farmstead or Sante Adairius, and was wondering if there were any other breweries that enforce this policy? My favorite excuse they gave was that it was for sanitation purposes- yet they will fill a RRBC growler multiple times, so not sure how that makes it any more sanitary than me bringing my own?

I can understand breweries not wanting to fill other breweries growlers. It’s a marketing thing. You see RRBC but some trash beer is poured and you only think RRBC (especially if you aren’t a big beer drinker).

What I don’t understand are breweries that don’t fill unlabeled growlers. That’s just money hungry to sell their own glass. Alpine and RRBC are the main culprits. They just want to make a few dollars off that growler sale.

Modern Times only fills twist top 2L, I hate twist tops because it loses carb quicker but their reasoning is sound. They have a counter pressure system that only fits twist top 2Ls, and because of this system, their growlers last for weeks without any loss. BUt they’ll fill blanks!

Some states have laws against filling other brewery’s growlers, but I think since most breweries are collaborative by nature there will be a movement to get those laws rewritten without much issue. I can see some of the issue with unmarked growlers as they can appear in a variety of sizes that could get the pricing structure a bit convoluted.
If given a choice, the simplest thing a brewery could and should do is offer a reduced price for filling their own. Most of the decent places around here give $2 off.

Speaking specifically of California, California passed a law allowing for any growler to be filled, the requirements are

  1. blank growler or any text in regards to other breweries needs to be completely obscured
  2. you need to create a little tag approved by the ABC with your brewery name, and you can fill in the beer + alcohol % + net size of the beer. The tag costs cents for each one.

So other than wanting to sell their own glass, there’s zero reason why places in CA won’t allow blank growlers.

Well, RRBC has no control over that. I could take an RRBC growler to the local piss shack and they would fill it with piss.

There was a brewery we visited a few years ago in NC and that said they could only fill their growlers by law. Their empty growlers were about $30 because they were fancy schmancy. We tasted and moved on. I am not sure if it has changed since then but I hope so.

Gotta love Washington and Oregon - as long as the container is clean and indicates the size, they’ll fill it. Other breweries, hydra flasks, mason jars - all good up here.

We can’t stand growlers. We never know how clean they are, they take time to fill, you end up wasting beer while filling them, and once the first beer is poured the growler starts to oxidize and lose carbonation. And then when the last glass gets poured three days later, the beer will taste nothing like it should.

Growlers were first used because brew pubs didn’t bottle. Well, most breweries bottle now. The bottling process is infinitely better than filling from a standard tap (counter-pressure growler filllers are good too), and a bottle is a size that is more likely to get drunk at one time. We pretty much bottle every beer we make and price our bottles so that they are cheaper than a growler fill. We will fill anyone’s growler but we’ll probably do our best to sell you bottles instead.

The system that looks intriguing to me are crowlers - 1 liter cans that are filled and sealed at the bar. I like them because they are smaller (more likely to get drunk at one time), the filler does a good job of excluding oxygen, and they aren’t resealable (so they indeed get drunk at one time).

We hate (especially me) growlers too. As part of our expansion we are probably going to add a system for crowlers.

Add me to that list to John. Unless you are going to consume the entire contents quickly they make no sense. The one plus is getting a fill of special rare releases that are not bottled. I very seldom fill growlers.

Cheers,

Bud

i love growlers, but i only fill them when i know they are going to be drank with a large group in one sitting. a lot of my favorite breweries- Hill Farmstead, DeGarde, Sante Adairius, etc, have substantially more growler fill options than bottles.

I like growlers too for big parties. I only fill them when I know I’ll open it within a couple of days, preferably the next day, and they’ll be finished or drain poured if not finished. I won’t keep any leftovers cuz the beer changes too much once opened. I just saw these at Costco yesterday.
image.jpg
Not quite as badass as the Society growlers but seems functional.

Many places won’t fill that style of growler unfortunately

At Funky Buddha they have that fancy machine to fill growlers. No idea how much the machine costs but they claimed their growlers would stay good for weeks if unopened. I brought one back to Cali in my suitcase and had it a few days later and it was fine.

I generally dislike like growlers.

Jason

Well, which is it? [cheers.gif]

I picked up one of these too Joe. I filled it yesterday at Coronado brewing with no issues.

Counter pressure. Same as modern times. They’ll last for a couple weeks and taste fresh.

I heard from a friend of a friend (so you know it’s reliable), that Russian River only filled their own growlers because back when the law was in place saying you could only fill your own branded growlers, they invested in special growlers and filling stations designed to work for those growlers, so they can’t necessarily fill other people’s growlers . No idea if that’s true since I’ve never been there.

The bigger question I have is, you guys actually buy growlers and don’t consume them in one sitting? Seriously? Wowsers, maybe I drink more than I think I do.

I can understand why breweries might hate them, but growler shops are a dime a dozen here and it’s the easiest way to get beer from breweries that don’t bottle.

I’ve never bought a growler for myself, actually. I have bought them for friends and family, and used them for samples, but never for myself. I’m just not a fan of the format.

Their growlers are a pretty generic flip top growler. At least the opening is.