The Daily Growler in Upper Arlington will debut Columbus’ first Crowler machine with a special event on Thursday, June 18th.

What the hell is a Crowler? A canned growler – and I think we all know what a growler is by now, class. Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado coined the term and technology that allows breweries and bars to fill and seam one-off, one-time-use, recyclable 32-oz cans at the bar. A CO2 purge station purges the cans before filling them, which helps ensure there is no beer-degrading oxygen added to the beer. The Crowler is then filled, lidded and seamed.

For their Crowler debut, The Daily Growler will be tapping rare beers and featuring rotating Crowler specials throughout the the day. The OH! Burgers food truck will also be on-site for the event from 5:30-9:30pm.

Buckeye Lake Brewery acquired a Crowler machine late last year.

The only beers that will notably NOT be available for Crowler fills at The Daily Growler are those from Columbus Brewing Company. Earlier this year, The Daily Growler launched an unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a Crowler truck and initially offered Crowlers of Columbus Brewing’s Bodhi as one of their backer rewards.

“We had no knowledge of their plans until we saw it on social media,” said Tony Corder of Columbus Brewing Company. “We’ve met with them, expressed our concerns and policies, and asked they not fill any of our beers in Crowlers.”

The Daily Growler readily complied with the request.

Corder says Columbus Brewing Company’s main concern with their beers being Crowler’d concern the permanence of the product.

‘It’s essentially a large can; it is seamed and sealed like any other canned beer, except it is filled from a draft line,” Corder said. “We do not feel any retailer has the right to repackage our beer in whichever vessel they choose, and that’s essentially what’s happening. Glass and stainless growlers have been clearly established as temporary, refillable vessels, intended for immediate consumption. The Brewers Association even has guidelines on how growlers should be handled and filled. The Crowler is not refillable and it is permanently sealed until someone opens it.”

Columbus Brewing Company is certainly not the only brewery to set standards about how their beer can be handled by retailers – many larger breweries have staff dedicated to monitoring how their beer is stored and sold, and several breweries don’t allow their beer to be used for growler fills at all.

“Our issue is not really with ‘Crowlers’ per se,” Corder said. “There are a number of breweries that fill Crowlers out of their own taproom. We may even decide to do it ourselves one day. But the point is that [the brewery is] the one doing it, not a retailer twice removed from the brewery.”

“We understand that consumers just want beer,” Corder added. “It’s not their job to worry about things like this. Most just want to take the beer home and drink it. But that’s why it’s our job as a brewery to have policies on these things and encourage that our beer is handled the way we feel it should.”