Pre-filled growlers

Five day old beer isn't much different from one day old beer, even in a growler if it is filled properly.

 

Rogue growlers seem to sit around forever.

I wouldn't buy personally.

 

I've never seen this with any place I've been to.

I've heard, and Idk how true this is, that growlers have a shelf life of about a month. I personally would never wait that long to drink one, however maybe that is what is considered the acceptable shelf life for them, which is why you got one as old as it was.

 

Umm, the growler was nearly a month old

 

It was almost a month old.

 

Now I would not be pleased seeing that date however I am not all that convinced the drop off would be that significant in the 3-4 weeks, assuming the growler was properly filled. If it was that malty when consumed it was probably fairly malty to start, if it were in a bottle it would still be within the ideal age range for most BAs.

Now to the bigger question, I am not a fan of this type of setup. I too would prefer the growler be freshly filled in front of me. Most businesses make decisions based on convenience and efficiency. It may work better for the brewery to have the growler prefilled and not have to worry about taking the time and space filling growlers when they could be pouring beers for on premises consumption.

 

I think you read that one backwards. Also you added a month.

 

Ouch....A month old growler won't be very good I'd imagine, unless its a BA stout or something really heavy.

 

Prost only sells growlers in package stores. Counter pressure filled, they hold up just like bottles. If that was top filled straight from the tap I could see an issue but I'd guess if they are pre filling they most likely are CP filled. m

Did you have the IPA on draft? If so how'd it compare?

 

It depends on the fill method. Bombers with 3 weeks on them are fine because they are filled with expensive bottling lines that keep oxygen out. They may pre-fill their growlers with some type of bottling line setup, which would make it acceptable. If they simply filled it off their draft lines and seal it then it probably would drop off a good amount after 3-4 weeks.

 

We fill all styles into growlers 2-3 times a week, so even though it's prefilled, our customers know that the growler they are picking up at the brewery is only a few days old.

 

I am not sure why some are saying "it depends if it was filled properly" or "depends on what was in the growler." The brewery is lying to their customers by saying it's fresh and implying they were just filled when these are nearly a month old. And being that the OP followed up and his question was ignored, that's really inexcusable. They should have invited you back for a free fresh growler fill for your trouble.

 

I don't know why nobody has asked yet, but what brewery was it?

 

Not to call nans but what is the upside to pre-filling them for sale at the brewery? I get Rogue putting them in TW's on the East Coast but the OP needs to fill in the details here.

 

Lake Placid Pub and Brewery in Lake Placid has a cooler or two filled with growlers and I never had a problem. Granted i am always there in the winter, when the town is packed, but 85% of the time that i am there, some employee is restocking, so you know they are always fresh

 

I could see it making sense for beers with an extremely high turnover rate, filling no more than what you could sell in a week. But for the most part, pre-filling growlers doesn't seem to make a ton of sense. Maybe to tempt people to buy more growlers?

 

I think I'm going to pile on here as well, by saying that the beer in question was nearly a month old, not 5 days. God that felt good.

 

Let me take a wild guess, higher mark up?