Growlers

This word may mean something else to you, but to us it reminds us of our beer trips to New York, Oregon and California. In the US, almost every beer shop, bar or brewery tap room had growlers. We’d watch as locals would pop in after work to get their growlers filled before heading home for the night.

I suppose we’d better explain what a growler is. It’s a container that allows you to take draught beer home with you. Growlers can come in many forms, and up to a couple of years ago, the most common ones we’d seen in the UK were the milk carton type two pint carriers to take home some cask ale from the pub.

At Vessel Beer Shop we’re keen to present the beers we sell in the best possible way, that’s why all our bottles and cans are refrigerated and also why, when it comes to doing take away draught beer, we wanted glass growlers and a good system with which to fill them.

We decided to go with a growler machine which fills the growler in a way which means that the beer comes from the keg and into the bottle without coming into contact with the air. This means you don’t have to rush home and open that bottle the same night, instead you can put it in the fridge and open it when you feel like it. You probably wouldn’t want to wait too long to drink a good beer, but it will be fine for four or five weeks. Once you open it, you should drink it within 24 hours.

We also wanted our customers to have a choice over size. So we have two sizes, the 750ml (Nugget) and 1.9l (Flagon). This way if you want to buy a big 10% imperial stout to take home, you can choose a smaller size, compared to maybe deciding a couple of litres of a 4% session IPA that would be good over an evening or at a BBQ. It also means if you’re driving you can still try that tasty draught beer once you’re home. Once you’ve finished, bring the bottle back for another fill.

Our tap list will always show the price for drinking the beer in and then the Nugget and Flagon fills.

The growlers themselves cost £5.50 for a nugget, or £7.50 for a flagon, and once you’ve bought it, you can bring it in to get it filled up as many times as you want. Also, if you see that we have something on draught but you can’t come in to pick it up straight away, just get in touch and we will fill you a growler and keep it in the fridge until you’re ready, and then just bring your empty growler in (in good condition) and exchange it when you pick up your beer.