BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs

Subject: BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs
From: Jim Martin
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 08:50 AM

Can anyone remember what these were/are called? I still posses a Charles Wells Eagle Bitter one from about 30 yrs ago, it has a plastic screw top with a reset button to keep it air-tight, the beer will last about 3 days before going off.I have searched the internet but can find no reference to them anywhere! They were quite popular and I think all the bigger breweries which sold real ale sold them.

Subject: RE: BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs
From: Jim Martin
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 09:17 AM

This is the kind of thing:

http://www.galtresfestival.org.uk/shop/productDetails.cfm?ProductID=760&Open=0

Subject: RE: BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:41 AM

In the USA they are common in micro brew restaurants.

The are called "growlers."

It is for taking the local brewed tap beer home and may be refilled multiple times.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Third generation home brewer - before the "Real Ale Societies "homebrew was the only way to get real beer over here. With growlers now so common - my stready stream of 50 years - is diminished.

Subject: RE: BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:42 AM

Oooppps....forgot reference.

www.bottless.net/The_History_of_The_Beer_Growler_s/605.htm

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs
From: artbrooks
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 10:52 AM

Similar purpose, but not quite the same thing. At least, most of the growlers I'm aware of - and we have 5 microbreweries here in Albuquerque that sell them - are 1/2 gallon glass containers with plain screw caps. There is no built-in mechanism to keep them pressurized, so once they are opened the contents need to be drunk fairly quickly...not really a bad thing.

Subject: RE: BS: 1/2 Gal Airtight Plastic Beer Jugs
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Aug 12 - 11:13 AM

My father used to recite this: (approximately--- many variations)

"There was a little man and he had a little can,
and he used to rush the growler.
He went to the saloon on a Sunday afternoon
and you should have heard the bartender holler!

No booze today, no booze today, you can't get booze on Sunday
No booze today, no booze today, you got to get your can filled Monday"


"To rush the growler (sometimes to roll the growler and other forms) was to take a container to the local bar to buy beer. The growler was the container, usually a tin can. Brander Matthews wrote about it in Harper's Magazine in July 1893: "In New York a can brought in filled with beer at a bar-room is called a growler, and the act of sending this can from the private house to the public-house and back is called working the growler". The job of rushing the growler was often given to children."