CT Growler Fills

It isn't hard if you are use to it. Adjusting to it when you can get whatever you want 24/7 is tough. While I love CT and consider it my home now, there was a huge period of adjustment.

 

Personally I never though busy places would be doing growler fills. I didn't figure a customer would want to wait for their pint while a tap was being occupied by a growler fill or seeing people come in with empty growlers occupying space. Or at the very least there would be limited times to fill. I couldn't imagine a place filling growlers on a busy Friday bot Saturday night. But I guess a few places thought ahead and are going to put growler stations in. I can't wait to get a growler of Old Rasputin! $$$

 

Other states already do this. And for good stuff, not just BMC. Enjoy By in a grolwer. The price point is a little higher but the selection and convenience for the customers are great. Do it for the stuff you can get tons of and limit the rarities. And the argument about margins is weak. They will sell the glass, so there will be profit there. And then they will have people walk up to them, get a fill, pay and leave. They won't use the bathroom or buy the food, just give you a profit on the fill. And imagine if they do buy a pint while they wait and have a burger too, it could be profit that they might not have seen if no law existed. I have gone to other states, WA and OR and was able to get tasty local growler fills without driving all over the Pacific Northwest. You can get growlers at gas stations out there.

And as far as the liquor stores are concerned....plan ahead.

Happy 4th!!!!

 

They overprice for growlers at Willibrew, as much as I enjoy that place and their beer.

 

Plenty of businesses selling nonessential good/services have to stay open seven days a week to compete. I've always kind of wondered what's so special about Liquor stores that they deserve these kinds of special protections that pretty much no other businesses enjoy. It always seemed inevitable to me that sunday sales and sales hours would eventually change.

 

you're underestimating the quality of willi's guest brews. sometimes that list looks like a decent craft section at a bottle shop, but other times it's filled with excellent draft only or limited release beer.

re: overall thing, i'm sympathetic to what onemoresolo is saying in general. beer availability is great, and getting weak pours from know-nothing bars isn't any big win. i like enhanced freedom, but it's a shame that the major consequence of it is screwing over small businesses (for the mildest of conveniences for the consumer).

 

Absolutely agree. I never understood what made liquor store owners/employees feel that they had some special standing which allowed them to dictate their own circumstances.

Liquor store owners in CT complain about the oddest things. "Poor me....first people are always coming into my store asking for beer which will make me money if I sell it to them....now I'm allowed to stay open later, potentially making more money". Give me a break.

 

i think it's just the nature of being a small business owner and feeling like you're barely keeping the lights on all the time.

it's like, yeah, you'd be getting by if you were open until 12am 7 days a week; you'd make it work with the extra overhead for minimal extra sales. but since you're not doing that now, and you already feel like overhead and such is killing you, you see a law passing that shifts things around as being a direct threat to your livelihood. i can't really blame them.

that said, i also don't blame them if they just don't stay open late even if the law allows it. do what you think is best, it's all good. i vote with my dollar anyway; i'm not spending too much time playing armchair business owner and deciding whether the owner of my local bottleshop is Doing It How I Would Do It. I don't care, i just want good beer, want people to succeed and have enough to eat, etc etc. if we can get that with you not working on sunday, great. i don't care.

 

The flip side to this imo is that businesses that want to open on sunday or stay open later should be able to do that if they want to.

 

yeah, it's fine with me. though i don't think we should ignore that it's always been BMC and grocery stores trying to push alcohol sales later, while small shops don't really benefit (plus the robbery problem). if little shops want to cater to late night beer cravings though, more power to them.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with grocery stores wanting to sell later. Businesses that can't stay afloat because grocery stores can sell their beer (important to note that, they aren't competing on wine or liquor) later should have seriously reevaluated the viability of their business ages ago.

If they really need blue laws and reactionary laws to protect their bottom line they're already on really shaky ground. Also, Gas stations, convenience stores, and all sorts of other small businesses get held up all the time. Why don't they have laws limiting their hours?

 

obviously gas stations provide more necessary services than liquor stores.

my point isn't that grocery stores are hurting small bottleshops, my point is that it's not the small bottleshops lobbying to get the law changed. and honestly, if you don't think specialty beer shops are viable businesses, i'm not sure what you're doing on beeradvocate.

 

I emailed J.Timothys and they replied and said the law does require that bars and restaurants have to supply the growlers. Glad I got a reply, but that sucks. They said this is the law:

"Such permit shall also authorize the sale at retail from the premises of sealed containers supplied by the permittee of draught beer for consumption off the premises. Such sales shall be conducted only during the hours a package store is permitted to sell alcoholic liquor under the provisions."

 

this law seems weirder and weirder by the day. Aside from grocers being able to sell later, what has really been achieved? who has really benefited? My life is not improved one iota by this legislation.

 

Whether they provide more necessary services or not doesn't mean they're in any less danger. If hold ups are a legitimate reason to limit business hours such limitations it shouldn't only apply any one particular type of business.

Why does it matter who is lobbying for it? And I wasn't saying they weren't viable, only that the arguments package stores like to bandy about would really only hold any truth if that was actually the case.

 

in general, i believe people speaking about their own interests more than the diagnosis of third parties. you can normally tell who benefits from legislation by who's for and against it, strange as it may sound.

this isn't really a fruitful discussion though. suffice to say, we probably have different views about the role of government in society (:.

 

that's a pretty self-centered way to assess laws. I'm sure there's plenty of liquor store employees who are happy to be able to get another hour of work. Their bosses might not because they need to lose a small amount of money to ensure people don't start shopping elsewhere. plenty of people who work late, maybe they get off their restaurant job at 9, and would like to go grab some beer after a stressful shift of dealing with jerks. I live in a beach community, tons of people from out of state where if 10 pm isn't standard, it's early, not late. etc, etc, etc.

I'm sure you can think of a million laws and regulations that only affect a small percentage of the population, but that has very little to do with whether they're "right" or "wrong" or "weird".

 

I think perhaps you misread my intent. Within the context of the conversation, talking about consumers demanding/feeling entitled to 24/7 convenience, and the impact this will have on the smallest business owners who might not even have an additional employee (who's not already family)....and if the snippet from the law quoted above really means I have to buy new glassware from every establishment I want carry out beer from....I, as a consumer, don't feel I'll benefit from this.

But you're right, I live out in the middle of nowhere, where most people are home with their beer or wine by 7pm, so I looked at it from that perspective. I also work retail where my store has ridiculous hours "just because" so there's a little of that too.

I certainly concede my take on it is cynical, but I think this sums it up for me

As for the legislative process, I would guess this bill started off with the best intentions at heart. Then it went to committee and all the grocery store, distributor and liquor store lobbiests had their say. This was the best compromise that could be attained but it's just a mishmosh with no clear beneficiary. but that's a whole 'nother conversation.....

 

Back to the title of the post (not knocking adding on discussion of the other major change in the law), I think this growler filling is going to be a major "we will see" on the growler success/interest. My experience in NYC is that it's difficult and not common for people to take advantage of growler fills at restaurants. That could be because there are much better non-restaurant locations that can fill under NY Law. Maybe being the only choice (besides from a brewery) will help those in CT that choose to offer this.

As alluded to in a couple spots cost and quality of the fills is going to be a huge driver here. If someone is willing to invest in a counter-pressure filling process, they may have better success than people pouring from a tube.

 

Cask Republic Stamford just posted on fb that they will start growler fills tomorrow (7th) ... Interesting post, worth the read.

My highlights were that they mention how they went to Maltose Express / Veracious to learn how to fill appropriately, they will fill any (clean) growler, they will note on their menu what is and is not available for growler fill (with price), they are not ruling out filling "whales" (FBD, Sip, Lunch, etc.) but will decide on a delivery by delivery basis and may even just promo as occasionally having them as growler only.

Found it very interesting to get some good perspective on what one business is thinking anyway.

I know Coalhouse (Stamford also) plans to also fill growlers but I don't know if they've thought it through entirely yet (they are focusing on opening their bar area in the coming days).