Growler Law Update

It's not as easy as just allowing for blank growlers, they have to get ABC accepted alcohol tab approvals. Whenever you get a blank growler fill the brewery will attach some sort of sticker/tab to it, from what I was told, each tab costs money. A pretty insignificant amount, but for some breweries where selling their own growlers are a profit center they can't see past the few extra dollars/time that needs to be spent to convenience their customers.

 

I'm not 100% sure this works because if some people don't want to buy glassware, they won't buy the beer (the main profit center). Whereas these people would absolutely buy an $18 fill of beer if they have a blank growler with them. I'm sure the brewery would be more than happy to make an $18 sale versus $0 for the cost of a $0.20 tag (I have no idea but it can't be that much).

 

Regardless of whether or not the growler is blank or labeled they still need to attach an ABC approved label indicating the beers name and abv.
Many brewers are ignoring that part of the law.

 

When I was at Monkish they filled another brewery's growler and put duct tape around the label and charged an extra $1 or 2 for the tape. No label was attached to the filled growler. It sounds like Bottle Logic is not charging anything extra it you bring in a duct tape growler to get filled.

 

Anyone have insight into how much these ABC approved tags actually cost?

Passed up on a growler fill at Kern River recently because I didn't feel like dropping another $10 on more crappy screwtop growlers.

 

I think all that is required a COLA through TTB-ALFD.

Those are free.

http://www.ttb.gov/alfd/alfd_cola_exemption.shtml

 

Depending on how the brewery gets them made/printed they could be made for as little as $0.05 a piece.

 

So is it about 5% of california craft breweries will fill a blank growler now? I wish that number was MUCH higher. I don't want to have a closet of 20 empty growlers from every brewery I've been to.

 

72/124 on californiagrowlerfills.com – i.e., 58%. Of course I don’t have every brewery in California on there, but I think most of the ones people care about are on it.

 

I'm just trying to figure out why they won't do it, that was just one thought that popped in my mind. Other one is they just don't give a shit about their consumer.

 

My speculation is that a number of the breweries just don't care. (*cough* Alpine *cough*) This discussion has been going for a while and has been clarified rather well by the government. To be fair, they might also just not feel it is worth their time. They aren't going to want to necessarily go to the minor hassle of filling out some government paperwork to get the sticker/tag/label approval when they already have a steady flow of people filling their current growlers. Add to that the EXTREMELY minor percentage chance that someone in the government wants to overly regulate this and fines said brewery for not having every i dotted and every t crossed in regards to the regulations. Easier to stick to the old way rather than doing that super scary thing know as "change".

 

I will try and get out to Bottle Logic this weekend and bring one of my many "other brewery" growlers and test out this new system they got. Just not sure if any of the new beers are worthy of a fill.
I don't see the "big" deal with filling blank growlers or other labeled growlers. Some say its because their system is made for certain growler styles. I see them mostly fill the same way. A tube coming out from the tap to the bottom of the growler and fill till it reaches the top and overflowing a bit. I do the same when I fill from my kegerator. How much does it cost BW, ESBC, Stone, Alpine, etc, etc to purchase growlers in bulk? And some of these brewery's charge $5, $10 or $25 (depending on style) for the growlers. I see the same german style growler (blank) with the flip top at my local homebrew store for $25! The same at the brewery's with their labels on it. So they have to be making money off it. Same as merchandising. A lot of $$'s comes from their merchandise they sell. You don't see any merchandise at BW except for t-shirts and when you purchase a growler with a fill of their fantastic beers the cost of the growler is $5 versus $10 at most other brewery's that sell the screw top growlers. Empty of course. Again it comes down to merchandising/selling and getting their name out to everybody. If I brought a blank growler of CitraHolic from BW would anybody care about no labels on the growler? They'd probably ask what is this awesome tasting beer? And you would tell them. If everybody said what is this awful tasting beer then you would tell them its from Anheuser Busch, a new style they are trying to get out to the kids.

Edit: I wish I would of checked SageO's Cal growler list before heading to Belching Beaver last weekend. I would of brought a growler with me to fill up with Hop Highway which I thought was worthy of a fill. But not the $ of another new growler to add to my collection. I had a SS from Societe that Rip Current would not touch. Oh well. They should of made a few more $$'s that day if they would of filled it. Their lose.

 

Anyone read this?

http://www.californiacraftbeer.com/2014/07/growlers-qa/

 

But if it's the brewery's growler, it's magically clean enough...

 

To further this...when a filled beer matches the brewery's growler, it will automatically start a cleaning and sanitizing reaction that sometimes works if you cover the labels from another brewery...but not always.

 

Such bullshit. More excuses. At a bottle shop in Birmingham, AL they have a growler station where they have a couple sinks and sanitizing solution where they clean your growler before each fill. Even if you walk in with a completely clean growler they clean it before filling. It's simple, and if breweries are really worried about it simply install a little cleaning station. Or refuse people with dirty growlers, but don't act like its some hurdle keeping you from filling blank growlers.

 

It's science, so it must be true.

 

There's technology hidden underneath the brewery's logo that's automatically triggered once you step foot inside the right facility. It gives out a secretion similar to One Step.

 

If the particular beer had notes of cat urine, then that wouldn't be so good.

 

Are any of the breweries people really care about expanding their growler fill policy?

Because it looks like basically no one worthwhile has changed their mind since whenever the law changed!

Unfortunately, most of the ones I see mentioned here frequently don't fill other breweries' growlers!

Alpine
Ballast Point
Beachwood
Bear Republic
Firestone Walker
Green Flash
Hangar 24
Kern
Lagunitas
Lost Abbey
Pizza Port
Russian River
Sierra Nevada
Societe
Speakeasy
Bruery


The only "popular" names I see are

Cellarmaker
Coronado
Council
Drake's
Knee Deep
Sante Adairius
Stone


Most of the big names in beer have shown no leadership on this. And almost no one on the second list really matches the caliber of people in the first list. Pretty sad showing.