The Daily Growler in Upper Arlington will debut Columbus’ first Crowler machine with a special event on Thursday, June 18th.
What the hell is a Crowler? A canned growler – and I think we all know what a growler is by now, class. Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado coined the term and technology that allows breweries and bars to fill and seam one-off, one-time-use, recyclable 32-oz cans at the bar. A CO2 purge station purges the cans before filling them, which helps ensure there is no beer-degrading oxygen added to the beer. The Crowler is then filled, lidded and seamed.
For their Crowler debut, The Daily Growler will be tapping rare beers and featuring rotating Crowler specials throughout the the day. The OH! Burgers food truck will also be on-site for the event from 5:30-9:30pm.
Buckeye Lake Brewery acquired a Crowler machine late last year.
The only beers that will notably NOT be available for Crowler fills at The Daily Growler are those from Columbus Brewing Company. Earlier this year, The Daily Growler launched an unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a Crowler truck and initially offered Crowlers of Columbus Brewing’s Bodhi as one of their backer rewards.
“We had no knowledge of their plans until we saw it on social media,” said Tony Corder of Columbus Brewing Company. “We’ve met with them, expressed our concerns and policies, and asked they not fill any of our beers in Crowlers.”
The Daily Growler readily complied with the request.
Corder says Columbus Brewing Company’s main concern with their beers being Crowler’d concern the permanence of the product.
‘It’s essentially a large can; it is seamed and sealed like any other canned beer, except it is filled from a draft line,” Corder said. “We do not feel any retailer has the right to repackage our beer in whichever vessel they choose, and that’s essentially what’s happening. Glass and stainless growlers have been clearly established as temporary, refillable vessels, intended for immediate consumption. The Brewers Association even has guidelines on how growlers should be handled and filled. The Crowler is not refillable and it is permanently sealed until someone opens it.”
Columbus Brewing Company is certainly not the only brewery to set standards about how their beer can be handled by retailers – many larger breweries have staff dedicated to monitoring how their beer is stored and sold, and several breweries don’t allow their beer to be used for growler fills at all.
“Our issue is not really with ‘Crowlers’ per se,” Corder said. “There are a number of breweries that fill Crowlers out of their own taproom. We may even decide to do it ourselves one day. But the point is that [the brewery is] the one doing it, not a retailer twice removed from the brewery.”
“We understand that consumers just want beer,” Corder added. “It’s not their job to worry about things like this. Most just want to take the beer home and drink it. But that’s why it’s our job as a brewery to have policies on these things and encourage that our beer is handled the way we feel it should.”
7 Comments on "The Daily Growler debuting Crowler machine; not all breweries on board"
really CBC??? You guys are terrible how fucking stupid
What’s the big deal if the vessel is reusable or not? The crowler cans are recyclable? And as for being repackaged, what’s the difference between a glass growler with The Daily Growler logo on it or a crowler with their logo on it? CBC, if people want your beer just sell it to them (but get down off the horse first).
I think Columbus Brewing is smart to do this. When beer is canned like this people have the ability to do whatever they want with the beer. For example wait a month to drink it. Or better yet ship a can to someone in California which would in turn be like waiting 4-5 days to open a growler and not keeping it cold the whole time. There’s no reason why the consumer shouldn’t be fine with filling glass growlers of their beer. CBC is delicious and I will continue to support them 100%.
It’s difficult to discuss all of the issues with this with just a couple sentences. However the main point, and one people seem to be misunderstanding, is about who has what right to repackage a product and sell it in that form. Although these are 32 oz cans….how is it any different than a retailer filling 12oz cans and selling it as a six or 12 pack? or filling bottles and capping them “home-brew style?” At its root, this is the exact same thing. It establishes a bad precedent. And it’s a lower quality fill. The CO2 purge does not extend the shelf life. And yes, a glass growler (or stainless) with a screw top cap, etc is drastically different than a 32oz can that is seamed and sealed in a similar fashion to a can of Bud Light. The Growler is refillable and intended for immediate consumption. Very different.
To have the ability to purchase a Crowler and take a beer somewhere glass is prohibited (pool, boat, beach, etc) is a very cool thing. I get that and understand everyone’s desire to have that opportunity. But folks have to realize that there are larger picture concerns with allowing a retailer to repackage the beer in a permanent container or any other vessel/method not approved by the brewery.
Breweries are the ones in the business of making and packaging beer…..not retailers.
If anyone has any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at tcorder@columbusbrewing.com
“Breweries are the ones in the business of making and packaging beer…..not retailers.”
That might be your opinion, but that’s actually not the case. Their are several locally owned businesses (The Daily Growler, The Ohio Taproom, Growl!, etc.) whose entire business revolves around packaging draft beer. If a business’ license allows them to do something, it doesn’t seem reasonable for a brewery to forbid them from operating within the law. It seems like The Daily Growler is fine not “Crowling” CBC beer, but what would happen if they did? Would you cut them off?
Alex- I think where we differ is in our definition of “packaging” or “repackaging.” We accept the idea of growlers in their current form. A refillable vessel intended for immediate consumption. There are guidelines set for their handling and filling. The shelf life of these beers once filled into a growler is incredibly short, but that’s ok because they were/are always intended to be consumed immediately. It’s merely a vessel of transport.
The Crowler, to us, represents far to closely a finished packaged product that a brewery would fill directly. Although many could take it home (or wherever else) and drink it right away, it is still a permanently sealed can….seamed and sealed in a similar fashion to any other can. That is our issue and what we consider to be a “repackaging” of the beer. No one besides the brewery should have that right to bottle or can our beer.
Regarding your final point and question: with the proper carryout license a retailer may be able to legally fill various containers at this point (and this is something we will take a hard look at as an industry and advocate for legislative changes if necessary), but in our eyes that does not give them the right to do whatever they want with our beer. That’s why brewery “field quality” teams exist. We’re far too small to employ a team of people whose sole job is to monitor quality in the market…..but it doesn’t mean we should care any less.
Yes, we would cease to sell beer to any retailer that refused to meet our standards for how the beer was handled.
Tony,
Crowlers are only going to help spread the joy of Bodhi, no one is selling or intends to stock a shelf full of Bodhi crowlers even if this controversy were to not exist. At the bottom line this is time and energy misspent fighting against a rightfully popular trend that would be better spent working on CBC packaging solutions.