Growler fills in MA?

the law has loosened somewhat and breweries are allowed to fill unmarked growlers. That doesn't help you with your stock of various growlers, though maybe you can chip some paint off. It also doesn't mean that a brewery will fill an unmarked vessel, it just means they're allowed to.

I don't particularly care as I'm not a huge fan of growlers, but I agree the law is pretty silly, though I'm sure most breweries are happy with it.

 

Growlers aren't a big thing here. Night Shift stopped filling them. Some of the new breweries have never done growlers but do sell crowlers(Winter Hill, Remnant, Democracy). I haven't filled a growler in MA in over a year.

 

It's weird, but the CT vs MA growler scene is vastly different. Just go to NEBCO on any given afternoon and see how many people are getting growler fills. Almost everyone.

 

The laws in Massachusetts turn growlers from a sort of elegant, waste-free beer delivery system into trash you can't throw away.

So, I don't think it's that weird.

 

Duct tape.

 

Looking at our statistics at Medusa since we had cans available for sale in the taproom, they outsell growlers about 2:1, but they are still a pretty substantial sector for us. That said, we have a 20 product line semiautomatic counterpressure growler filler, so it helps us have a lot more variety to go than the 2-4 can options we have at any given time. I can certainly see why a brewery that was filling straight off a tap would gladly retire the format in favor of cans, though.

 

Because who wants to go out and buy a dozen new growlers?

I live in the southwest corner of NH, about equidistant from MA and VT. I take my growlers into Vermont EVERY week to get them filled - including my old Tree House, Medusa and Honest Weight growlers.

(Let's not even talk about why I'm not filling them in New Hampshire).

 

Because they don't brew beer there?

 

There's beer here, it's just that most of it isn't especially good. Some of the ones that are good, like Kettlehead and Schilling, are crowler fills. New Hampshire is branded glass only, too. I have a couple of Deciduous growlers and, I think, a Post & Beam but, frankly, I couldn't live here if I weren't less than a half hour from both Massachusetts and Vermont.

 

I'm not a fan of growlers. A 4pk of tall boys is much easier to share than a bottle gradually losing carb.

Crowlers, I detest. I'm mostly being charged $12-16 for 32oz. The equivalent of $24-32 a 4pk?

Feck off. I refused to be gouged like that.

 

I take growlers into Vermont when I go too, but thats because Hill Farmstead is my favorite brewery and they don't can or bottle everything. Now that they do can some stuff I bring less growlers. But they are the only brewery I'll deal with PITA growlers for. There is enough excellent canned and bottled beer around these days to not have to deal with an inferior beer storage option.

The MA growler law is dumb but if it leads to breweries focusing on getting their beers into cans then the law has actually been a good thing.

 

I like crowlers for the purpose of not being required to buy a growler when it's the only take home option available. I hate crowlers because it seems most places will charge for a crowler, on every transaction, what a growler fill would cost with buying the glass.

I have disposed of many and now own now olny 2 growlers now. One is a local brewery I fill at often and the other is a MA brewery that I only fill when I am in a state that allows me to use it as is.

It's terrible for the consumer to have to buy brewery specific glass and it seems to have slowly hurt breweries too with consumers getting sick of it. Maybe NH and MA will get thier shit together on this stupid issue some day.

 

I'm a fan of growlers only because it's typically the only way to take home small batch beers at some breweries. If more places had canning/bottling lines and packaged everything then i would gladly get rid of my shelf of unused growlers.

 

This is true, one might think that crowlers are awesome because they don't charge for the can, but look at the price, crowlers are $10-$12 around here.

 

Is this inaccurate?

https://www.masslive.com/business-n...beer_lovers_rejoice_rule_change_to_let_m.html

I rarely purchase a growler, but I seem to remember the "house glass" rule in MA changing a while ago and a debate about it in Beer Talk. Basically I thought MA breweries now have the option.

If I was running a brewery, I would not want to put my beer into another brewery's branded growler - no way. A non-branded blank - well, there's still risk there as people are generally lazy and to some people "clean" is just as subjective as beer taste. I know I chatted about it at Jack's Abby at their old place and they had some really disgusting horror stories about "clean" growlers. I seem to recall that being discussed and breweries should retain the right to refuse to fill for any reason. Some breweries, like Nightshift, just opted for no growler filling - and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth...

 

Really it's the same thing if you're bringing back branded glass to be refilled, right? I mean, as far as whether or not the customer did a decent job cleaning it out. There's no place I go to that swaps out the growlers you bring in for new or house-cleaned - although I just recently heard of someplace that does that, I forget who now. Most of them will hold it up, squint down into the bottle, maybe give it a sniff, to a greater or lesser degree depending on who's pulling the taps, but, washing it for you, not so much.

 

Yes - clean/dirty doesn't matter what the source of the growler. Either way you are relying on the customer being conscientious as a means of maintaining the integrity of your beer.

Jack's Abby used to swap them out and do their own cleaning - I don't think they do anymore due to cost and time. I did see first-hand Bog Iron exchange one once - they were refusing to fill it since it was dirty and the customer caused a commotion so they just threw it out and gave him a new one. The thing was filthy with probably the yeast cake from the previous fill in the bottom, lord knows what else that I didn't want to see.

If it were me, I wouldn't fill somebody's branded growler from another brewery because I am working my ass off to establish my own brand identity. I don't want my beer under somebody else's label, clean or dirty. I would refuse to fill a dirty branded or unbranded growler because it is just a he said/she said pissing match if a customer complains. I think I wouldn't fill 'em, period.

But if I had a world class brewery I could walk to, as a customer it would be great as the "bottled while I watch" thing.