Pennsylvania’s liquor laws are very slowly moving in the direction of the 20th century. I visited a Pittsburgh brewery (microbrewery) called East End Brewing and I found out that we can purchase beer drawn from a tap into a glass jar, called a growler. I had never heard of this before.
Sooooooo, I bought a coupla growlers. (One empty, one full)
What’s the deal with these? How long does the beer stay drinkable? I drank most of one the same night I purchased it, and had the tiny bit remaining with my coffee the next morning. It was still good!
Between growlers and decent boxed wine my liver doesn’t stand a chance.
Growlers are great – we’ve got six or seven of them from Colorado breweries. Some of them say (on the side) to enjoy the contents within 48 hours; others say within 72 hours. It’s usually gone within a day, so I’ve never really tested the limits.
A couple of the breweries in Colorado (Rockyard in Castle Rock and Tommyknocker in Estes Park) have really pretty growlers available – they have what appear to be pewter fixtures and handles. We just go for the plain glass ones.
There used to be a brew pub in the west loop of Chicago called “The Tap and Growler.” Nothing was considered “packaged” to go, but you could get draft beer in a mug, a growler, or a pitcher. The growler was the in-between size.
The much less classy version is seen here - there’s a drive through beer barn that will pull you a gallon milk jug of draft Pabst, Natty, or Bud and seal it so you can carry it in the car.
kayaker, I introduced my SO to East End. Great stuff. If you keep it sealed tightly, it should be fine for a week in the fridge. Once you open it, it’ll tasty funky within 3 days time. Half gallon growler is a couple ounces more than 5 beers, so unless you drink 2 one day, 2 the next, and 1 the final day, you should plan to share it. As much as the SO would like to keep it hanging around all week, he usually plans to share it one day with someone, especially the Black Strap, which is pretty heavy stuff.
PS - you can fill the growlers up at a few local restaurants too, just check the east end website. Useful if you don’t want to conform to “growler hours”.
One more thing - don’t put ANY soap in thing thing once it’s empty! Just rinse and shake well with the hottest water possible several times. You can always ask the staff to rinse it out for you one more time once you’re there, too.
Growlers are awesome. And they have a pretty interesting history in the US.
Before beer was pasteurized, it was a local product purchased at your local saloon. You could bring it home in a bucket, called ‘rushing the growler’, although I think the origin of the term is lost to history. And workers would employ kids (bucket boys) to go fetch them some beer and bring it back to them. Ahh, the good ole’ days.
We usually bring some home when we hit our local brewpub and we’re terrible about bringing them back for refills. I think at one time we had close to 20 Russian River growlers in our garage.
Anyway, here’s a link to a neat article I read a few months ago after first hearing the term ‘rush the growler.’
Love growlers. They are a nice loophole when it’s too late to buy beer at a liquor store or gas station but you don’t want to spend all night out at the bar or brewpub.
Growlers are awesome. All the local brew pubs have them for takeout. We just had a more specialized brewery open up (Sun King Brewery). Their beer isn’t really all that good, but they have their moments. The pale ale is, however, quite tasty - and Friday’s is $5 Friday Fills. You can’t beat a $5 growler of decent pale ale.
The only thing I don’t like about growlers is are the brewers who won’t fill ones that aren’t their own - even plain ones. They claim there’s laws against improperly labeled brews. Yeah, right. Even if it’s true, the officer is really gonna take a swig and say, “Hey, waitta minute. That’s not pale ale! That’s not pale ale at all!”. These guys just want you to have to buy theirs.
In Northern Virginia, the growlers are imprinted with the name of the brew pub where you bought them–but all local brew pubs will refill any growler no matter where you bought it. Solidarity!
Round herem the youngest male son or daughter of the family would fetch a quartert pail or bucket of Bier from the corner Bar or Pub for Dad and Grandad. It was the youngests responsibility… everybody could have a glass.
Growlers are theoretically a pretty cool idea, assuming you can pre-taste, and they are cheaper in the long run (assuming you bring back the bottle). My house mate brought home a growler that was pretty tasty. OTOH, some of the brew are seasonal.
I’m going to preface my hijack by saying, yes I could ask my housemate directly (assuming we are both home and awake at the same time, which is rare). But what the hell, maybe he’s not a freak and this is something legit:
Every once in a while he brings home a growler, and it gradually gets drunk, whatever, then the bottle disappears.
However, recently there was some party, for which I only made it home for the next day, by which time, the growler was filled with a clear liquid. I considered the possibility that the growler had been filled with some kind of clear liquor, but I smelled it and it just smells like water. Did my housemate just fill it with water to cleanse it, and forget about it, or is there some other explanation?
