No more refills at New Day Craft

For four years now, mead and cider maker New Day Craft has been refilling growlers for customers at its Fountain Square tasting room. That was up until last week, when owners Brett Canady and Tia Agnew found out that they actually can’t do that.

“The short of the story is, because we are a farm winery, not a brewery, we are actually prohibited from refilling containers,” Agnew explained.

According to Agnew, the oversight was discovered when the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC) did a review of the code, specifically Indiana Code 7.1-5-3-4(a)(2).

“Because we’re really popular, someone said, ‘Hey, there is a winery that does that.’ They just knew about us, so they called,” she said.

As it turns out, state law actually prohibits any retailer from refilling containers with alcoholic products unless that retailer holds a microbrewery permit.

“Per statute, only breweries and/or the restaurants owned by a brewery can refill growlers. No other container refilling is permissible at the retail level,” Corporal Heather Lynch with Indiana State Excise wrote in an email.

Unless the law is adjusted, places like New Day Craft will have to work around it, and in its case, that won’t involve switching permits.

The meads and ciders the company produces do not use grains, but fermented honey and fruit, therefore it cannot be licensed as a small brewer.

Meanwhile, Agnew has implemented a new system to keep customers happy.

“If you make cider, just like beer, cider falls under that beer culture. There is a growler culture in the craft brewery industry, and we fall right under that,” she said.

To keep up, customers can still buy 32-ounce plastic growlers, called “bullets,” and have them filled with mead or cider for a single use. The cost is $2 dollars extra. After that, customers will have to find something else to do with the bullet, whether that’s recycling it or taking it to a brewery to be filled. It just can’t filled again at New Day.

The company has maintained a sense of humor about the situation, even running a week-long contest for ideas on how to reuse growlers.

“The ATC has been lovely about this whole thing. They are just doing their job,” Agnew said.

Follow Amy Haneline on Twitter and Instagram @amybhaneline, and Facebook . Call her at (317) 444-6281.