CA Growler Law Revisions?

Interesting. That's what's needed though. I have 40 freaking growlers, it's so dumb. CA is the land of "oh we are so green and don't waste anything! " Ok - then make a universal growler legal to fill ANYWHERE.

 

I went to a brewery where they just put a sticker on the growler covering the other brewery's name. Seemed that worked for them.

 

you do understand that that would make sense, which is not allowed in government or legislation anymore?

 

There was a bunch of good info on the other forums...

Some of the things I remember/learned.
1.) You have to be a brewer to legally fill growlers and can only fill with your own beer; what Yardhouse was doing is illegal.
2.) A sticker or hangtag on a blank growler would work, but you'd have to have a blank growler, and you'd have to convince the brewers to get on board with this, which would potentially hurt their overpriced growler sales.
3.) There was an effort to get a "Brewed in California" growler made, allowing you to have that one growler and filling it at any brewer in the state. I don't think the brewers liked that idea and it was shot down.

 

I'm curious which brewers were opposed to this idea. I think most of the breweries I've been to sold growlers at an ok price, but there's one LA area brewery that sells their glass for $20 and I was pretty put off by this.

 

If I remember correctly BA misterclean was in the process, or had actually had legislation written for a new growler law.
He or somebody else came on BA and said that there was very little support from either the brewer's or associated trade groups (Brewers Association?).
Of course this is all going off of memory about a year ago or more, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

I have always thought that this would be the obvious way around our stupid growler laws, but haven't come across a brewery yet that does this. Unless they're unique, I don't need to buy a new damn growler for every brewery I visit.

 

BP&C 25200:

25200. All beer sold in this State shall have a label affixed to the package or container thereof, upon which shall appear the true and correct name and address of the manufacturer of the beer, and also the true and correct name of the bottler of the beer if other than the manufacturer. No manufacturer, importer, or wholesaler of
beer shall use a container or carton as a package or container of a
beer other than such beer as is manufactured by the manufacturer
whose name or brand of beer appears upon the container or carton, or
use as a package or container of a beer a container or carton which
bears the name of a manufacturer of beer or the brand of any beer
other than those of the manufacturer of the beer contained in the
container or carton.

As long as it has the manufacturer's name and the place that filled the growler, it's all kosher according to state law. They've been thinking of using smart codes too.

 

I was always pretty sure that the "must be brewery-branded glass" thing was bullshit. I wish the breweries would drop the crap and accept other growlers.

 

I feel you. At Port you can have their growlers filled at any location. Then again, it has all three address locations on the freaking growler (at the time). I've also submitted some sample legislation, but it appears that our Legislature is more concerned with blueberry commissions and creating budgets that are not balanced, rather than signing legislation that would increase sales, create jobs, and add to the tax base all at the hands of the commercial craft brew industry. Go figure.

 

Well, to be fair, it might actually decrease employment marginally by resulting in fewer glass sales. However, the main reason for this change is because the current system is absolutely ridiculously retarded.

 

You think so? I don't purchase growlers except on rare, rare occasions. I have maybe 5, and 2 were raffle prizes. If bars, pubs, etc. sold growlers, it would be a huge boon for the craft beer business, the amount of money raised through beer sold in California would offset glassware sales in a matter of days.

 

I love growlers in theory but I only have 3 because it's not worth it to have a collection of stuff that can only be used once or twice. There's no reason breweries can't figure this out, and I can't imagine why they wouldn't want to. There are some exception though, I just went to a new local brewery and their growler was blank but they print out nice big hang tags with their logo, address and the fill. Wish more places did this, but also wish the laws would change so I could go get fills at local bars too, then I'd be set all the time...

 

I like Jim's, from Lightning Brewery, take on CAs growler laws. He prints stick on labels, just like the ones you find on tons of beers in the store (ie Budweiser), and just sticks the appropriate label on whatever growler you bring in. He just slaps it on top of the printed other-brewery's label on the growler then puts a rubber band around it in case it doesn't stick. I've read the CA growler law and don't understand why everybody else doesn't adopt that policy - it completely complies with the law and I don't end up with a million growlers, for which I have and thank Jim for having 1 less. Plus their Elemental Pilsner is not a bad beer at all.

 

It's hard to tell. I mean, how many people are there like you who would end up buying more fills? And when you buy more fills does that add to your total beer consumption, or do you buy fewer bottles? Are the bottles you buy from in-state or out-of-state? Did you buy them in CA bottleshops? All of those things will matter to whether or not you spend more money (plus the thing I pointed out before with dudes who have lots of glass, they stop buying glass, do they buy more beer to compensate?).

Anyway, since we're in a mini-depression right now I totally get why everyone wants to link everything to jobs, but there are plenty of things that may or may not end up making jobs that are good ideas for other reasons. If you want to make jobs, we should burn down the thicket of pointless occupational licensing that only rewards incumbents at the expense of customers/new starts. (At the state level, at the national level there are a lot of much better things to do, like repair/improve our crumbling infrastructure. But hey, it's not like we can borrow at negative real rates right now, making doing something like that actually a positive investment even if it has a 1:1 economic return (and in reality it's more). Frustrating.)

 

I love the brewers who have $24 growlers like Hess. Just kidding.

 

I thought the reason for Brewery specific growlers is for traceablility? For legal reasons, the beer needs to be traced back to the brewer that filled the growler right? I'm not sure how the Brauler will circumvent this.

 

Right now I'd be content if you could refill a brewery-branded growler with their beer at offsite locations. ISO Whole Foods growler fills.