Bringing Home Beer You Could Only Get in A Bar

Ever wanted a beer that you could only find on tap but didn’t want to sit at a bar?

You could buy a keg and tapping equipment, but let’s face it, that’s a lot of beer – 15 gallons – and the gear is expensive. There’s a simpler, less costly solution. Buy a growler – a half-gallon jug – of beer at one of the area's beer distributors.

Growlers, which look like jugs of moonshine, are filled straight from the beer tap and sealed with a twist-cap.  Some beer aficionados use more extravagant bottles, some holding up to 2 liters of brew, with a ceramic swing cap and metal handle. Either way growlers provide an ecologically sound way of purchasing beer, because they are reused or recycled with each use and they minimize the amount of packaging that needs to be manufactured and transported. They’re also great for serving beer at gatherings.

Recently, they’ve become quite popular in New York City, where grocery stores, drug stores and others have rushed to add taps.

In Huntington, three beer retailers offer a vast, ever-changing array of beers on tap for growler fills.  The beer may cost as little as $7 or as much as $30, depending on the wholesale cost to the distributor.  You can bring your own growler or the store will lend you one for a small deposit. You can come back and claim your deposit or get a refill.

Growler taps have become especially popular recently as newly established craft brewers, many of them on Long Island, choose not to bottle their beers. With a growler you’ll be able to bring home beers made by such brewers as Blind Bat Brewery of Centerport, Greenport Harbor Brewing, Great South Bay Brewery of Bay Shore, Long Ireland Beer Co. of Port Jefferson Station, Barrier Brewing of Oceanside, SixPoint Craft Ales and Kelso, both of Brooklyn, and others.

Certainly, growlers are not a new phenomenon. In fact,  “long before we had refrigerators in our homes, the only way to have fresh beer around the house was to tote it home from the brewery or tavern,” according to All About Beer magazine. Many of the early breweries would supply beer only to a particular city or even a neighborhood. All of the beer they produced was packaged in kegs and sold within a 1- to 5-mile radius of the brewery.”

In those days, beers were carried home in crudely made, galvanized metal pails, sometimes with lids, according to the magazine, which also noted that the term “growler” originated as a result of children handling beer. The father or grandfather of the household would usually send the kid down to fetch a fresh pail of beer. If the child was not careful and splashed the beer out of the bucket, the old man was said to “growl,” according to the magazine.

Shoreline Beverage in Huntington pioneered selling freshly tapped beer to go on Long Island in 2003. More recently other beer distributed around Long Island got aboard the growler bandwagon.  You can also buy growlers at various breweries around the region.

Shoreline, which started with just five taps, added five more last year. In addition to the big jugs, the store sells 10 oz. samples in screw cap bottles.

“I wanted to offer the customer the opportunity to take home beer in a small package that wasn’t available in bottles,” said Stuart Haimes, co-owner of Shoreline. “I want to give people a chance to try a beer that’s only available by the keg.”

Super Star Beverage in Huntington Station installed its eight taps about four years ago, said manager Chris Mennella, who noted there’s usually a dark brew, a light variation and a hoppy beer on his tap roster “depending on what might strike me when I do the ordering.”

Customers, he added, “want to try something new and different and interesting."

At Big Z Beverage manager Eric Heldt says the store’s 11 taps – the first were installed in 2008 – almost always have one or two local brews.  The selection, he said, is determined by what beers his customers have asked him to obtain.  Beer aficionados, he said, “are always looking to try something different or new or a hard to find rare beer.”

Growler consumers run the gamut, from full-fledged beer geeks to imbibers who ordinarily go for such mass market beers as Budweiser and are intrigued by the tap handles they pass in these shops.

Bob Maddock, of Franklin Square, is among the beer aficionados who buy beer by the growler, often stopping by Big Z Beverage on his way home from work at a Commack pharmaceutical firm. Maddock, who says he typically keeps a few empty jugs in the trunk of his car, buys “the craft beers and the limited releases because many times a growler is the only way that beer is available, especially our local brews like Barrier and the ever-elusive Blind Bat. I also find that many beers taste fresher on tap.”

Maddock added, “I've learned that some beers taste different – sometimes very different – when they are poured from the tap, as opposed to in the bottle. This isn't just a matter of freshness; it's how the flavors evolve in the keg versus in the bottle. So buying a growler gives me an opportunity to explore those differences.”

Here are places in Huntington for growler lovers:

BIG Z BEVERAGE
1675 E. Jericho Tpke., Huntington, NY 11743 (631) 499-3479

On tap as of Mar. 24: Southern Tier Gemini, Captain Lawrence Expresso Stout, Firestone Walker Double Jack, Long Ireland Celtic Ale, Ithaca Flower Power, Long Trail Double Bag, Keegan’s Ales Super Kitty, Pauwel Kwak, Sixpoint Mad Scientist, Otter Creek Alpine Black IPA and Wolaver's Alta Gracia Coffee Porter.

SHORELINE BEVERAGE 
645 New York Ave., Huntington, NY 11743 (631) 427-8488

The 10-tap line up on Mar. 24:  Greenport Harbor Leaf Pile;  Brooklyn Main Engine Start  Blind Bat Hellsmoke Porter, Cricket Hill Cricket’s Nocturne, Chelsea Checker Cab Blond Ale, Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock, Michelob Amber Bock, 21st Amendment Back in Black, Founders Brewing Devil Dancer Triple IPA and Sly Fox Seamus’s Irish Red.

SUPERSTAR BEVERAGE
516 E. Jericho Tpke., Huntington Station, NY 11746 (631) 423-0292

Available as of March 24: Avery Joe’s Pilsner, Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, Greenport Harbor Black IPA,  Greenport Harbor Hopnomi Double IPA, Greenport Harbor Triton Barleywine, Sixpoint Diesel,  Speakeasy Scarface Stout.

***
Tastings this weekend at Bottles & Cases, Huntington: Today, 1-4 p.m., Tito’s Homemade Vodka, Bartenura Pinot Grigio, Bartenura Moscato d'Asti and Herzog Merlot; 4-7 p.m., Bushmills Irish Whiskey,  L'Exception d'Aimery Grand Cuvee Brut, Perfecto Prosecco and Abbey of St Hilaire Chardonnay, Renegades Shiraz/Cabernet/Malbec, Oliverhill Shiraz, Rave Zinfandel, Sincero Ribera del Duero, Windy Lane Chardonnay and Viva Bene Pinot Grigio; Saturday, 1-4 p.m., Chateau St. Jean Cabernet, Chateau St. Jean Fume Blanc, Meridian Merlot and Meridian Chardonnay,  Provenza Lugana, Prospero Chardonnay and Don Paolo Aglianico; 2:30-4:30 p.m., Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label and Rose tasting and bottle signing with winemaker Cyril Brun; 4-7p.m., Maker's Mark Bourbon, Maker's 46 and Courvoisier VS Cognac,  Fair Vodka and Goji Berry Liqueur;  Sunday, 1-4 p.m, Gloria Ferrer Brut, Freixenet Cordon Negro and Freixenet Carta Nevada Secco.