Growlers in Bavaria

Nearly every one of the 350 breweries around Bamberg will fill growlers. Many will also fill personal kegs. Same holds true for Oberpfalz.

 

I've been to 100+ breweries in Germany, hardly ever saw them, I guess I was hanging out at the wrong places.

 

Douglas, your experiences are not too dissimilar to what Tony (@boddhitree) previously posted in this thread.

I would suggest that the contrast between the US and Germany is a topic of geographic propensity. Within the US there are brewpubs in all 50 states (and DC) and needless to say customers can purchase growlers from those brewpubs. In other words growlers are ubiquitous in America. It seems from these posts that growlers in Germany are used in pockets of Germany.

Cheers!

 

There are quite a few cantinas around that have shops where you can buy bottles of their wine as well as "vino sfuso" if you want a larger quantity of wine directly from the tap. A few other shops that just sell local "vino sfuso" from a collection of local vineyards. Not all of them are good, but at less than €1,50 a liter you can't go wrong if you're just grilling and drinking in the hills.
Additionally, any osteria worth its salt will also offer vino sfuso. Again, usually something local.
Beer or wine, similar traditions.
It's a small world!

 

'pockets' like Bavaria [which is specifically what the op was asking about]

 

Yeah such things I have seen. But for "normal wine",not in germany. Sadly. But "our" winemakers have at least 1l bottles for cheao for their delicious basic wines.

 

Yes it's usually just a standard sangiovese or barbera or perhaps a simple pignoletto if you're looking for white wines. Again, much of it isn't that great but a few producers to put out some pretty tasty "normal wine."

 

If it's anything, I don't believe I've seen a growler anywhere near Munich and the only ones I saw in Dusseldorf were at a small brewpub. Bamberg was the only place I've seen them regularly.

 

Masskruege are miniature growlers in themselves

 

And I've seen a lot of people carrying them away from the Wies'n...

 

Steveh what are you doing calling Oktoberfest the Wies'n? LOL

 

The Wies'n is where the Oktoberfest is held* (and from where the Maß carriers stumble away) -- I have my terminology correct!

*Frühlingsfest, for that matter

 

I thought I caught you slipping there.

 

I know my meadows from my festivals.

 

I'm curious how you get this opinion Scott. Again, your experiences in Franken/Bamberg though authentic and very cool are but a microcosm of the much larger Germany. They're a minor pocket of world gone past. They're wonderful traditions... I wish all of Germany were like Franken, but it's moved on unfortunately. Franken's pop. = 5,244,706 (http://www.stupidedia.org/stupi/Franken) is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of Germany = 80,683,776 as of Thursday, April 7, 2016 (http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/germany-population/), a mere 6.5%, so generalizing your experiences and the like onto the entire country is ludicrous. Using what in FFM is called a Bembel for Apfelwein, and you say is called a Siphon, is unheard of in the remaining 94.5% of Germany. I've never seen it except in Bamberg and in YouTube videos about Zoigl. It's quaint that they still do it at Zoigl breweries and in other minor pockets of Gemany, but the OP nowhere mentioned which geographical location inside Germany he was referring to, did he? Since in didn't, whether he intended to or not, his meaning was to all of Germany or in general.

In a side note, like the Brauereiaussterben in Franken and Bayern in general, the Franken population is declining, losing between 6% to 9% in the future, according this article from 2011 I found from Die Welt.

 

Thread's title.

 

Better to count percentage of total breweries than percentage of general population here, wouldn't you agree?

 

Who did that? All I was trying to convey is, it is done in some areas (which lie IN BAVARIA, and I'd say that franconia and the oberpfalz constitute for a big part of BAVARIAN beer culture). It is the same with Ebbelwoi/Äppler/Viez- although it is unheard of and uncommon in most of germany, in some regions (Trier, some Parts of Saarland,Frankfurt, Hessen kinda in general) it is very common and part of the traditional cuisine.
Or think of Kölsch, although its percentage of total beer consumed is TINY, in and around cologne in many pubs you won't get anything else to drink.

 

Stoneware/earthenware "pitchers" were also referred to, and used as, "growlers" in the US.
https://sites.google.com/site/jesskidden/stonewarejugsorpitchersasgrowlers
Perhaps they were not as common, or maybe they just lack the nostalgic "romance" of the metal bucket/pail.

I never use mine (a few pictured above) - but, then, my truck needs new shocks and it's all back roads to the nearest store with a growler station.

 

New breweries in the US rarely have the funds to bottle or can immediately so growlers are the take-out method to increase sales. I'm hoping that Scott will fill growlers for his new venture, bier keller columbia as I doubt he will bottle immediately. My local store has 24 taps so growlers are sometimes less expensive than bottles. Most of the buyers are old guys like me....