New State Budget Includes Exciting News for CT Beer Fans

Re-posted from my blog: Malted Musings.

The recent passing of the new CT state budget may have slipped under most of your radars (as it did mine, at first); however, a closer look of the budget yields an interesting line item:

§§ 78-82 — ALCOHOLIC LIQUOR POLICIES, under Subsection Beer Growlers (§§ 78-80)

The bill allows restaurant, café, and tavern alcohol permittees to sell at retail permittee-provided and sealed containers with draught beer for off-premises consumption. In the case of a restaurant permittee, the bill (1) additionally requires that the containers be filled by the permittee and (2) prohibits manufacturer, out-of-state shipper, and wholesale permittees from supplying the restaurant permittee with the authorized containers or any draught system component, other than tapping accessories.

These retail sales are limited to (1) four liters of beer per day to any individual and (2) the authorized hours for off-premises alcohol consumption sales (see below).

EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2015

In other words, growler fills are no longer just reserved for visits to breweries! For any bars & pubs who want to offer this service can now fill up two of your standard sized (64 oz.) growlers, equaling four liters a day. Now, these growler fills must take place during liquor store hours, which are now 8 AM - 10 PM from Monday - Saturday, and 10 AM - 6 PM on Sunday thanks to the new budget.

This measure has been debated for quite some time now, both in legislation and by bar owners and beer drinkers. Proponents don’t see anything wrong with this: at last stingy CT is “loosening it’s belt” a little bit! Now instead of trekking out to a brewery to fill that growler, you can support your favorite brewery by heading out to your local taphouse or tavern and getting their brew there. In addition, if you like a rare beer on tap at a bar, now you can take some to go!

Opponents are a bit more hesitant about the new measure. Some folks who run bars have expressed reservations about having a new influx of people coming in just to fill growlers. What if the growlers are damaged in some way? What if the people illegally try to drink their growlers at the bar? How can an already-busy pub fulfill the demands for growler fills while tables need to be cleaned, bar glasses need to be bused, and eight people are waiting to order their next round?

Only time will tell how this new rule affects the CT beer scene, but I for one am cautiously optimistic. If anything, this should allow more local breweries to move more product via a variety of outlets instead of just primarily from the brewers’ location. Who knows? Maybe this also puts us one step closer to package stores that do growler fills!

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