Before you bring your local growler to fill at a new brewery – especially a brewery in a different state – check out their growler laws first.
While at Broad Brook enjoying a 6-Balls Alt, my husband and I chatted with a guy who recently traveled to New Hampshire with growlers to fill. He found out the hard way that in New Hampshire, there is a law banning breweries from filling up growlers with a different brewery labeled. Fortunately, the brewmaster there collected growlers and was happy to trade him, so it all worked out. In looking into this more, I realize we are very fortunate in CT, where most breweries are cool about filling any kind of growler that fits into their filling systems.
Keep in mind some breweries:
- choose not to fill growlers from other breweries, or only sell pre-filled growlers (some don’t sell growlers at all!)
- have special machines and can’t fill odd-shaped growlers or those with flip-tops
- only accept brown glass growlers
- will not fill a dirty growler
- will not provide new caps for your growler
The bullets below are based on the laws that I could find for each New England state as of September, 2015.
Connecticut
- growlers are available for sale at breweries, grocery stores, and liquor stores (32 and 64 oz.)
- breweries can fill growlers from other breweries
Maine
- growlers are available for sale at breweries (32 and 64 oz.)
- breweries can not fill growlers from other breweries
Massachusetts
- growlers are available for sale at breweries (definitely 64 oz.)
- breweries can not fill growlers from other breweries (an attempt to change this in 2015 failed)
New Hampshire
- growlers are available for sale at breweries (definitely 64 oz.)
- breweries can not fill growlers from other breweries (an attempt to change this in 2015 failed)
Rhode Island
- growlers are available for sale at breweries
- there is a 72 oz. per person limit on beer sales
- breweries can fill growlers from other breweries, but about 40% of the breweries do not fill them
Vermont
- growlers are available for sale at breweries
- breweries can fill growlers from other breweries
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I am so glad to learn this before accidentally finding out I can’t use my own growler. It definitely explains why some Groupon deals include an empty growler. Always remember – if you do not like the growler rules of your state, let your representatives know! If you do not like the rules of your local brewery, let them know! Neither may care, but it is always good to try.
Firstly, thank you for your concise list of the laws and potential local policies.
I have seen many grumblings about the various laws prohibiting filling growlers from other breweries, and would like to take a moment to chime in on the subject. Although a brewery I visited recently cited safety concerns (they can’t verify that any growler but theirs can handle the levels of carbonation they use), I believe this is not the reason for the laws. Think about it from the brewer’s perspective – if you bring a growler from Brewery A to have it filled at Brewery B and it’s a really good beer, then the customer walks out with a Brewery A growler of great beer. Brewery B doesn’t get any credit for the great brew they made. On the other hand, if it was a really bad brew, Brewery A gets the blame, even though it wasn’t their beer. There is really no up-side for brewers to fill other breweries’ growlers, and it can be damaging to their brand to do so. In the rest of the business world, you never see one manufacturer branding their products with their competitors’ packaging, it’s just not good for business. Although we would like to believe that brewers are sent here to Earth by the ever-loving Gods to provide nurture for our souls, they have bills to pay and a business to run, so let’s support them by using their growlers. Give them some credit for the great job they’re doing!
Hi Daniel. Thanks for your comments! I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I agree there are the branding issues you raise. I recently started home brewing, and my husband is adamant about removing the old beer labels before bottling ours. He doesn’t want our brown ale in a naughty nurse bottle, for example (and not because our brown is better!). I only care about the bottle being clean 🙂
As a consumer, I look at needing new growlers as a cost and space problem. First, they’re big. I wanted to collect one from everywhere… until I had about a dozen hanging around the house. Growlers can be returned to a package store for a $.60 recycling credit, but on average they cost $5 for me to buy. Breweries likely pay more than $.60 to buy growlers as well. I see the requirement to purchase a new growler each time as passing an unnecessary cost to me, the consumer. A happy medium for me would be to accept blank growlers or to offer a cheaper bottling option (plastic growlers, maybe?).
Thanks for the useful information!