SARATOGA SPRINGS — If there’s anything more refreshing than that first taste of a brew made at the very bar, restaurant or pub you are dining in, it’s being able to take that prized beer to the comfort of your own home.
Druthers Brewing Company, Eddy’s Beverage, Inc. (EBI) and Olde Saratoga Brewing Company are among the local outlets where you can grab a growler and enjoy the carbonated beverage back at the house.
“What I like about a growler, if you like drinking high quality draft beer in a bar, this is the closest you can get to it at home,” said Olde Saratoga Brewing Company sales and marketing director Max Oswald. “There’s something about it that’s kind of fun. I usually get growlers when there’s people coming over, so you’re sharing it and getting through it and maybe you get two or three different styles and it’s just kind of fun to sample. it’s a nice way to have a mini beer tasting. I mean draft beer is really how beer is meant to be.”
Olde Saratoga Brewing Company usually offers around 10 varieties of their own brand to be put in either 64 or 32 ounce growlers, but has a wide range of 17 different selections available at the Saratoga Springs location right now. As the fourth largest brewery in New York, the company is owned by the Mendocino Brewing Company in California.
“The fact that we have the full year of seasonals is really rare,” Oswald said of the large selection.
Druthers brewmaster George DePiro has brought over his recipes from his days at the Albany Pump Station to Saratoga Springs and it can all be made available in either one or two liter high-quality German-made flip-top growlers.
“Growlers should be drunk as fresh as possible and be kept cold all the time, but I have successfully kept beers up to a week, even 10 days, in an un-opened growler kept refrigerated,” said DePiro. “Once you open a growler and pour beer out of it, you’ve got to finish it because it will go flat.”
Right now, Druthers has nine brews available and will produce about 25 different styles throughout the year. From his award-winning “Fist of Karma Brown” ale to the “Golden Rule Blonde” ale to the recent sour experiment of the “Gose,” which is tart with a citrus flavor, DePiro and Druthers have a variety of choices to bring home in a growler.
“It’s a huge difference, ordering a mass-market lager versus any craft beer,” DePiro said. “You’re not going to have the full-flavor experience when you’re ordering Budweiser or Heineken or Stella or Corona or any of those beers. It’s very light tasting, relatively bland and boring. The overwhelming majority of craft beer is made for flavor.”
Although EBI doesn’t brew their own beer, that doesn’t stop owner Mark Eddy from searching for new things for people to bring home in 64 or 32-ounce growlers.
“We have a tendency to get stuff that you don’t see everywhere else,” Eddy said. “We seem to sell more of IPAs then anything, so we have the tendency to stick to that. I see something I like and I pick it up and keep it in the cooler and just keep rotating, but generally a keg doesn’t last more than a week.”
Of the four fresh beers available for growlers, EBI has the Rushing Duck’s fall De Levende Doden (“The Living Dead”), which has a rich chocolaty base in addition to the Belgian Trappist yeast, as well as a cherry flavor. There’s also Sierra Nevada’s “Northern Hemisphere Harvest Ale,” Gandhi-Bot’s “Double India Pale Ale” and a Warlock blend with a stout.
“The best way to buy a growler is to share it with someone at one sitting or certainly by the next day,” added Eddy.
For a further look into beer selections and growler pricing at the three locations, visit www.ebisaratoga.com, www.oldesaratogabrew.com and www.druthersbrewing.com.
