Growlers Coming to a Liquor Store Near You?

When we went over the recommendations we found this one to be particularly divisive. Personally I would love to be able to fill my growler anywhere – the idea of being able to swing by Brewery Creek and get a fill of something from outside of Vancouver/BC/Canada that isn’t available in bottles really appeals to me. Not only the convenience and variety but also all the reasons why growlers are so awesome like the lower environmental impact, not having to pay the bottle deposits and tasting a few different things before choosing. There’s lots of new breweries popping up all over the lower mainland but there’s still lots of people who don’t have access to them, this way they too can join in the revolution, be inspired and when a brewery inevitably opens nearby (we’re getting close to 100 in BC!) they’re already armed with appropriate glassware.

However this isn’t a view shared by many BC breweries, naturally they prefer the idea of keeping growler fills within their wheelhouse, concerned that consumers will go to the liquor store instead of coming to them. This is a reasonable fear, however it seems to me that there’s more to it, if you’re craving some of Brassneck’s awesome Passive Aggressive then a growler of Fat Tug from the liquor store isn’t going to cut it. I believe that sophisticated craft beer consumers aren’t driven by convenience.

It could be argued that quality may suffer if a pub or liquor store fills your growler as the brewery can’t guarantee how it is filled, but that rationale could be applied to any serving of a beer anywhere any time and we seem to be doing ok. If a brewery hears complaints about the quality at a location then they can (and sometimes do) pull the tap.

Of course it may not be practical for liquor stores to have filling stations, they would require a lot of space and extra staff for what could be less profit and convenience (for them) than packaged product, however for breweries with no tap-room or out of town breweries it could be a life-line. It could also be a great draw – for example if Firefly had a keg of Lustrum, there could be a huge line up. Imagine you were visiting Prince George and saw that there was a keg of something from Penticton’s Bad Tattoo or Portland’s Hair of the dog! I think this would be a real help to the craft beer community, after all I doubt people will be filling growlers of Budweiser.

One unexpected ally in this is ABLE BC, the industry advocate for issues affecting pubs, bars and independent liquor stores throughout the province. ABLE BC and CAMRA BC have butted heads a few times, after all we’re on opposing sides of the discussion, I understand their mandate is to maximise the profits their members make out of you, the consumers. CAMRA BC, as you know, champions the consumers above all. But in a recent post on the www.ablebc.ca website they stated:

The Liquor Control and Licensing Branch (LCLB) has recently requested ABLE BC’s recommendations on allowing private and public retail liquor stores to sell growlers (refillable bottles) and to operate refilling stations (Recommendation 68 of the BC Liquor Policy Review). Currently, customers in BC can bring their empty growlers to breweries or brewpubs to be filled with beer or cider at prices generally lower than if customers purchased the same quantity in cans or 12-ounce bottles. 

It’s unfortunate that once again the BC Liberals have elected not to ask the consumers or CAMRA BC for recommendations, but I spent a few hours with ABLE BC’s new ED Jeff Guignard the other day talking about what we might agree on. It’s great to see ABLE BC reaching out to CAMRA and becoming part of the craft beer community, (Jeff is our newest member – welcome!)  he’s invited us to be a part of the discussion that the government evidently doesn’t want to involve us in.

UPDATE: as a result of this post a Policy Analyst at the Liquor Control & Licencing Branch in Victoria contacted me to say that they had tried to contact us to be a part of this discussion. They have asked us to forward any comments and suggestions on this topic which we are very happy to do. Let’s hope that future emails don’t get lost as we’re very keen to be a part of any discussion that affects consumers in any way! 

CAMRA BC doesn’t have an official position on growlers being filled outside of Brewpubs and breweries but we should, so what do you think? We want your input, as consumers do you think that it would be good for other craft beer consumers or do you think that it’s a bad idea all round?

Shoot me an email if you’ve got some thoughts (the comments section isn’t working at the moment) pres@camravancouver.ca I’d love to get some more opinions from you, our members on this.

Adam Chatburn

President, CAMRA BC – Vancouver Branch