Growler question..

I'll use San Antonio as a example. I get my growler fills at the grocery store (WF), brew pub (Freetail), growler station (Big Hops) and the movie theatre (Alamo Drafthouse) to name a few. Works exactly the same way in Austin, DFW and Houston.

 

The premise, for me, is being able to drink something fresh from the tap, in the comfort of my own home or with friends, without being at a bar. I typically only get growler fills of stuff that is "tap only" and not available in bottles, and its a lot cheaper to buy a 32 or 64oz growler fill of something than to purchase that same amount in pints at a bar.

Short answer - growlers let me drink fresh beer, at home.

 

Side note to this, in Texas you can't fill growlers at production breweries (karbach, jester king, etc) they can't sell for off premises consumption

 

Side note to your side note... with the recent law changes in the Texas Legislature, they actually can technically do it by switching to a brewpub permit (which Jester King and Hops & Grain are currently in the process of doing), while still retaining the ability to distribute. Should be seeing more growler fills at breweries in the near future (as long as they produce less than 10k bbls).

Traditional brewpubs (Freetail, Black Star Co-op, Uncle Billy's, NXNW, etc...) all do growler fills already.

 

I've searched many times and am unable to figure this out, maybe you or someone else here can help me. WIth the JK and H&G change to a brewpub, will they be forced to sell food? I know they have to have more hours, but I can't find anywhere that they will be required or not to sell food.

 

I don't know for certain, but I was under the impression the brewpub distinction has to do with the amount brewed and distributed and that there is no food related to it.

 

From the TABC website...

 

Thank you for the correction, that's whati meant but clearly didn't articulate it correctly...

 

I know there is more to it than that. I remember JK saying they have to extend hours to become a brewpub, so there has to more to it.

 

Fair, but I'm pretty sure that serving food isn't a requirement. I could be wrong though - perhaps someone knows more than I do.

 

I think the extended hours and food are not legal requirements, but are practical requirements for brewpubs to be able to make enough money in onsite sales to offset not distributing any/as much beer.

 

I can't see there being a law/regulation on how many hours a business needs to be open

 

I was thinking this as well, so I dug some more and found more detail. I don't see anything in here about any sort of hours requirement. I think what you said above is right. And it says in Section 74.01 that a brewpub may serve food - doesn't say they have to.

 

Great, thanks for the info everyone.

 

They are bit required to sell food. Some examples of places that are brewpubs that do not serve food are (or were before they closed):

Middleton Brewery (Wimberley)
Lovejoys (before they closed)
Draughthouse (but they do sell basic chips and stuff)
The Barber Shop

 

Jester King has a new blog up at http://jesterkingbrewery.com/blog/. In it they mention the following:

So there you go.

 

Yep I read that post today.

 

Where are you from in Texas?

 

So the possibility exist that we can see JK Growler fills?