Going Mobile: The Latest Growlers Move Your Homebrew in Style

This article originally appeared in the September/October 2021 issue of Zymurgy Magazine

By Bryan Cohen

Despite being available almost anywhere in the world, beer is a surprisingly delicate beverage. Contamination, ill-timed oxygen exposure, temperature, and sunlight can all affect the flavor and experience of your homebrew, sometimes within minutes.

Since many of us drink where we brew (it is called “homebrew” for a reason), these agents may not be much of an issue most of the time. But take your beer somewhere? That’s something else. Beer may have been given by God to make us happy, as Ben Franklin is said to have quipped. But transporting it? God left us on our own, especially if you keg your beer.

Enter the trusty growler. The term growler dates back more than 100 years, and some say it refers to a time when to-go beer was carried home in buckets and the sound of escaping CO2 gave the vessel its name. Today’s interpretation, the
trusty moonshine-jug-shaped brown glass bottle, is common because it is cheap and somewhat serviceable:
brown glass minimizes the effect of light, while the lid keeps carbonation for a couple of days.

Despite its current popularity, glass was not always the first choice for growlers…