The beer growler redefined: The Bräuler

For beer geeks like you and me, we have the beer growler to help us transport tasty draft beer from one location to the next. Whether it be home brew, our favorite draft, or a hard to find beer from another city, the growler is a beer geek must have. The thing about growlers is, they haven’t changed much over the years and pretty much resemble a milk jug. The unwritten rule with growlers is that the beer is best immediately and typically you’re OK for 24 hours (plus or minus a few days) if you don’t open it. Factors such as air, light, phase of the moon, mood of Congress and the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow (European) all seem to affect the tastiness of the beer between the growler and your glass. For the most part, drinking it immediately isn’t a problem for most of us but sometimes it’s a hassle. Life can get in the way and even getting the thing home can become a challenge.

Enter the Bräuler: this was the brain child of a bunch of guys like you and me who upon pontificating about how to improve this design came up with this awesome product and started The Zythos Project. The big change? In my opinion it’s two changes;

No. 1 – replacing glass with food grade stainless steel. If you’ve got a coffee carafe or had a stainless canteen as a kid I don’t even need to explain this. We all know that stainless does a pretty good job of keeping hot things hot and cold things cold. It is also awesome because it’s easy to clean and doesn’t harbor nasty germs like other surfaces can.

No. 2 – 2.8″ inner diameter neck. Why is this a big deal? If you’ve ever filled a growler you know how big of a pain it can be as beer going in and oxygen trying to escape makes for all kinds of fun bubbles and fizzy mess. With this puppy, you can fill it like a pint glass and easily see what you’re doing. Also, it makes it a lot easier to pour into a glass once you’re at the predetermined enjoyment location.

Lucky for us, there is currently one location in fabulous Knox-vegas that carries the Bräuler; The Casual Pint. I was able to talk to the owner, Nathan Robinette, about the Bräuler and what interested him about the product.

Nathan was first alerted to the Bräuler by two customers who had seen mention of it on these vast interwebs. So, he checked into the project and was able to secure an order. The innovativeness of the product, the ease of filling it and cleaning were all huge pluses. Also, these guys have approached the Bräuler as a “system” and intend to release add-on products – such as a CO2 cap to help preserve tastiness. What was also a plus was the ability to laser etch  “The Casual Pint” onto the growler itself – pretty cool branding opportunity.

I was able to take one of these for a test drive and based on Nathan’s suggestions, I decided to be pretty hard on this thing. I also filled it with The Casual Pint’s Dirty South Brown Ale – seemed appropriate.

Test 1 – Travel
If you’re like me, when you’re traveling with your growler, you try to either put your growler in a cooler or make sure it stays upright. There have been journeys where, let’s say a bad cap made itself known. I have a box I keep under the back seat of my truck for this very purpose. In the case of the Bräuler I let it lay on it’s side, on my fleece jacket – no leaks, no problems. We’ll give this one a pass.

Test 2 – Temperature
After 24 hours in the fridge, I purposely left this thing out on the counter, at room temperature, full of beer, for an hour. Now, I did slide it back into it’s koozie – as it does come with it and I wanted it to be a true “test.” After an hour – the exterior hadn’t changed at a very cool 59 degrees. The interior had warmed 9 degrees. I even used a laser thermometer like an official Mythbuster. Now, a 9 degree change might seem significant, however, unless you’re transporting a lager or any beer you don’t want to actually taste, you want it to warm up some.

Now, it should be noted that certain beers should be served within certain temp ranges. There are varying opinions on this but it largely depends on the style, individual preference and also on what the brewer recommends. For this  brown ale, mid-50’s is ideal.

So, I poured a pint and told it not to go anywhere. This time, I left it on the counter for a total of 4 hours checking it on the hour, every hour.

Note that over the test period the interior changed a total of 17 degrees – ending on the upper end of the “ideal” serving temp for this style beer but the exterior only changed 7 degrees – pretty interesting and while I haven’t done this type of test with a traditional growler (my geekiness must stop somewhere), I wouldn’t expect this kind of performance from glass.

Test 3 – Freshness
24 hours after the initial fill: As I mentioned above, when I initially filled this growler, I filled it with a beer I knew – The Casual Pint’s Dirty South Brown Ale – brought it home and left it in the fridge for 24 hours. When I popped the cap I got an immediately release of CO2 and the pint was every bit as fresh as when it was filled the day prior.

48 hours after the initial fill: I won’t say I’ve never let a beer sit in a growler this long because I have. Usually if I haven’t opened it, it’s still fine. If I have, who knows. We also have to take into account the number of opens/closes from my temp test above but 48 hours later there’s still a fair amount of head when I pour the beer and while I wouldn’t categorize it as perfectly “fresh” it’s not flat either.

1 week after the initial fill: I’ll be the first to admit, this is pushing it. However, Nathan suggested I give it a try, just for fun, so I have. Much like Raphie and his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, I had my hopes set pretty high imagining the possibilities; if it could handle a week, what couldn’t it do?! Alas, when I opened it up, the beer was flat. While a little disappointing, let’s be honest, none of us are going to let beer sit that long anyway.

Test 4 – The Dishwasher

Now that I’ve emptied the contents, it was time to clean this sucker. Cleaning a regular growler is a bit of a pain – hot water, soap, a lot of swishing and then making sure all the water gets out so mold doesn’t form – yawn fest. The Zythos Project website specifically touts “dishwasher safe” so in it went and out it came clean as a whistle. I’ll drink to that.

Final Snobs: At $50, The Bräuler isn’t cheap in comparison to it’s siblings. However, it does come with the koozie and it’s hands down a better, not to mention the sweetest, beer transport system out there. While it didn’t live up to my dreams of preserving beer for a week, I’ll be the first to admit, that my head was in the suds on that one. I’m giving this one a big thumbs up and would encourage you to snatch one up while you can or at least start dropping hints to Santa.

Cheers!