Well, what law? There's no published MA law or ABCC regulation or ruling that prohibits the filling of foreign growlers. Several brewers allude to the ABCC advising them that doing so is not allowed, but without seeing that advice in writing it's hard to determine what rule is prohibiting it. That said, it's probably rule 2.06 12:

The problem with this rule is that it's designed to keep people from stealing kegs owned by brewers, where the brand identifies the owner of the container. This gets more complicated with growlers, because the owner of the container and the owner of the brand are two different entities. It's also unclear whether filling a customer's growler would be considered "trafficking" or "exchanging"--I don't think it fits those definitions, but I guess the ABCC says otherwise.



What they should do is just say that for refillable beer containers owned by the consumer, no labeling requirements beyond those mandated by the TTB shall apply. The proposal above has the stupid restriction that the container must have been purchased from "any licensed craft beer brewer, wholesaler, or importer," which is going to be a pain for breweries to comply with.

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