Does anyone actually like growlers?

For the breweries in my area - my favorite beers are not available canned/bottled.
So I buy growlers very often. Sierra Nevada does me fine for cans/bottles.

 

I just got a 64oz growler of Jackie O's Dark Apperation filled for $22. Way cheaper than buying bottles at $6 or $7 a piece.

 

I think everyone is missing the OP's point of the question is do you actually like filling growlers vs. if those same breweries offered same fresh beer in various bottle formats or Crowlers? I personally hate growlers for every reason that has been mentioned previously in numerous forum posts. I don't even think its truly desirable by breweries either to fill growlers on site which is why they usually mark up the cost per oz of their liquid. More time/labor intensive for them pushes a cost premium onto the consumer. 64oz growler fills really need to die off quickly like the dinosaurs and Blockbuster video stores.

 

I purchase growlers specifically if I am having someone over and looking to add a fresh (and often local) quality brew to a drinking session. I agree that 64 ounces is often too much beer to be consumed by one person in one sitting, especially with the high abv beers that I tend to fancy.

32 ounce Crowlers, on the other hand, are really great to have available. I have two sitting in my beer fridge right now.

 

I like them & I am thrilled that many places in NW Arkansas are now filling them. I do a vast majority of drinking at home and this usually is the best/freshest option.

 

I reread to OP's question as stated. If available, I prefer either bottles or cans. If not available, however, I'll take a growler as opposed to no beer at all.

 

I'm sure some do, but I don't. It's not anything wrong with growlers themselves, and I can see situations wherein I'd make use of one but those situation have never occurred for me. My drinking is a little sporadic, so buying a growler I might not be able to get to in time doesn't make sense for me. If there is something local that isn't distributed in bottles or cans and I want to try it I just go and have a pint somewhere it's on tap. I'd have to drive there anyway to get a growler filled so the trip is the same. Though if the liquor store around the corner theoretically had growler fills that'd change the dynamics a bit and I might find the occasional 32 oz fill becoming a thing for me. A short trip and a small enough amount of beer that it'd fit into the occasional 'I've got time to run 'round the corner, come back home, and have a couple pints' scenario.

 

I don't like growlers because most of them are expensive. I don't like paying bar prices, $12 for a 32 oz pale ale is rarely worth it. I will buy them for beers that aren't packaged but always would prefer to have the beer in bottles or cans.

 

I'll add to my previous answer: I don't PREFER growlers to cans or bottles. I will only get growler fills of beer I can't get in bottles or cans. I never to for beers that I can get in different formats. But I'll take growlers over not being able to drink beer I want to drink.

 

I love growlers and buy one to two a week. Also, I've had cellared growlers as old as 5 years.

 

I like them. They allow you to take away beers that are not available in cans or bottles. They play a special role in that way.
There re-usability is a benefit as well.

 

I have 6 growlers, 2 (64oz) of them I can keep pressurized and 2 are swing top 32oz. If I ever find a RIS on tap that I can't get in a bottle, or it is cheaper than it's 22oz bomber, I am all over it. The pressurized ones I will get with lighter beers that can't be purchased by the bottle/can. You can regularly get Yellow Rose on tap for $11.99 to $12.99 and a 26oz bottle is $9.99. I have only gotten 2 growler fills this year, but that is because I have become more discriminating and still trying to drink down my cellar.

 

Growlers are great for bringing home beer from some of the small local breweries that don't bottle or can their beers.

 

I like growlers a lot, but I find myself not buying fills often. There's a cool shop in town that does fills, but usually the IPAs and pales and the like that I'd drink throughout an evening tend to be more expensive for a fill than a six pack. Sometimes you can get better price per ounce on stuff that only comes in big bottles, but I don't do it that often because I don't often want to consume 64 ounces of barrel aged stout or 10% IPA in such a short time.

If the price per ounce on "daily drinkers" was the same/cheaper for fills as bottles/cans, I'd do fills a lot more.

 

I used to do a lot of growlers back in the day - I carried 18 of them in the trunk of my car from different breweries because I never knew where I'd end up, and because a lot of breweries insisted you use only their growler. My whole point in doing that was that there wasn't a great selection of beer available "at market" - but now that has changed completely!

Now I'll only do growlers (and preferably 32 oz.) for beers that I can't get bottled or canned (ABSOLUTELY LOVE CROWLERS B.T.W.), or if I'm just in the mood.

I also don't mind leaving a half of a 64 oz. in the fridge for a day or two, it's still good, but it's not my favorite thing - so I usually only buy them if I'm going to a party or something.

Also, as #dexterk1 mentioned it's environmentally conscious, and as #ericwo pointed out it's the closest thing to draft beer.

Oh, final answer - no, apart from the last two items, no I DON'T REALLY LIKE GROWLERS!

 

Hell no. They take up too much room around my house, you have to drink them within a day of filling them, you can only use brewery specific ones if you want it filled at the brewery, and at $10-15 for the growler itself (plus the money spent for getting it filled) I could've bought 2-3 6-packs, or a few bombers. I'll drink my fair share (maybe more) at the brewery, but I cannot be bothered to take a growler home.

 

Maybe things are just cheaper around here, but growlers typically cost $3 to $5 for the 32 oz. size. Trillium is a great example of why I do enjoy growlers, I have bunch of them already, and you can swap sizes anytime you go, and you get 32 oz of beer for the 25 oz price. Good deal for anyone that goes there fairly often. Also, no need to drink them in a day or two, I have had plenty of growlers that stay good for a month, easy, especially if counter filled with CO2 first..

 

Growlers are good for drinking draft-only beer at home but I do think the full 64 oz size is inconveniently large. I rarely want to drink 4 pints of the same beer in a day. 32 oz should be the standard.