The 32-ounce Crowler is gaining popularity among craft brewers and convenience stores
Crowlers. Just like growlers, but made with aluminum instead of glass. And they’re becoming more popular with bars, restaurants, retailers, brewers and craft beer enthusiasts.
There was a time when craft brewers scoffed at the prospect of using cans instead of glass. But for Oskar Blues Brewery, a Longmont, Colorado, craft brewer that was the first to embrace the can, creating the Crowler (with the help of Mason jar manufacturer the Ball Corporation) is pioneering the “American craft beer in-a-CAN movement,” according to its website.
“We get off on pushing the limits, doing things differently and the Crowler is another step of innovation to take advantage of what the can package has to offer from behind the bar,” said Jeremy Rudolf of Oskar Blues.
Unlike its glass growler counterpart, the Crowler is a one-use, recyclable 32-ounce can that is filled and seamed for freshness via the tabletop All-American Can Seamer, a machine developed by Oskar Blues and similar to devices used in sealing homemade foods in mason jars. Oskar Blues has sold more than 120 of its machines to breweries, bars and beer stores across the United States, as well as a coffee company, reports the Charlotte Observer.
In North Carolina, bars, restaurants, breweries and bottle shops are accustomed to filling growlers, but one bar/bottle shop, State of Beer, saw canning craft beers as a point of differentiation. “We were looking for an alternative package to the growler,” Chris Powers, co-owner of State of Beer, Busy Bee Cafe and Trophy Brewing Co., told the newspaper. “It seems as though a lot of bottle shops have started filling growlers and we wanted to be different.”
Also in North Carolina, Mills River convenience store operator Triangle Stop Food Stores is selling Crowlers from its in-store Mountain River Tap & Growlers bar. The company is promoting its I-Can Crowler sealer and cans via Facebook, and a YouTube video shows the craft beer canning process in action.
