32 oz mini growler. Worth selling?

[tmh75]

We are a small brewpub and are considering adding 32 oz growlers to increase our sales. Does anyone have any experience with these?

1) Will they decrease your regular growler sales?

2) Being that the 32 oz bottles cost roughly the same as a 64 oz growler (egrandstand.com) is it hard to make the price seem attractive?

a. We currently sell new clear growler full for $13, refill $8
b. !/2 growler might be New with glass $8, refill $4
c. to confusing for staff?


Any thoughts or experience would be great.

Thanks

Todd
Outlaw Brewing
Belgrade, MT

[blueskybrwr]

Todd,
In Lexington VA, our demographics cover college students to retirees (and we are a 2bbl brewery) and the 1 liter works for all of them. We hesitated at first but we now have many customers that have multiple one liters for two main reasons. 1) 2 pints in a sitting is reasonable and if they drink only one the next pint will be carbed enough to still drink the next evening. 2)They can get variety. We offer at least 6 styles at a time so people like to take home more than one at a time.
We do charge more per liter for a fill. We charge $6.5 for a 1 liter fill vs $10 for a 2 liter. We have only ever had one customer notice the price difference and he now owns several of both sizes.
We are in our second year and glass sales are slowing but it is even between 1 liter and 2 liters.

Cheers,
Bill
P.S.
My day job takes me to YNP 2-3 x's a year. I'll have to stop by this spring when I land in Bozeman.

[tmh75]

Bill,

Thanks for the reply. I am originally from Virginia please stop by and see us on your way to YNP, we are very close to airport. We are also a 2bbl Brew house brewing into 7bbl fermenters, with generally 6 to 8 beers on tap. Sounds like you just gave some very relevant advice.

Todd
Brewer
Outlaw Brewing
Belgrade, MT

[Brewtopian]

We're not a brewery we're a bottle shop and restaurant/pub but we have 10 handles and fill growlers. In December we we started offering the quart (32 oz) sized growler along with the regular 64 oz size and it has been incredible. In just over a month we sold almost 300 of the 32 oz, on pace with our 64 oz growlers. We fill them for 1/2 the cost of the full sized growler and people routinely bring in 2 or 4 at a time so they can take home a good variety of beer vs one growler of just one beer.

The big upsides of the QT (cuties as we call them) is your customers will end up buying more beer and more than one type of beer so your entire lineup will get a boost vs just your IPA or Hef or whatever.

I'd look around for another supplier if you're paying the same price for the QT as you are 64 oz growler. Our cost with two sided one color screen printing with freight is about $3.50 for the 64 oz and about $2.25 for the QT.

[BeerDaddy]

Here in Florida, our growler laws are still out of whack with the rest of the country, and 32oz are the standard, since 64oz or illegal! We ccan have 32 and below... and 1 gallon and above... nothing in between.

Many of us love to collect growlers from breweries - including other states - but can't use them here for fills since they are almost exclusively 64oz.

Just something to think about.

[mikefromcu]

We also rolled out the 1 litre growler from eGrandstand, shortly after opening to meet the needs of folks who couldn't or didn't want to drink 2 litres in one sitting.
http://egrandstand.com/grandstand/product/6345227.html

They sell very well and folks love the convenience of having a choice.

Cheers,

[drowland]

This is precisely what I was going to say. In FL, breweries have to sell 32oz growlers and they sell a ton of them. However, that's not necessarily something to go on, I guess, since we can't sell 64oz growlers.

Here in Florida, our growler laws are still out of whack with the rest of the country, and 32oz are the standard, since 64oz or illegal! We ccan have 32 and below... and 1 gallon and above... nothing in between.

Many of us love to collect growlers from breweries - including other states - but can't use them here for fills since they are almost exclusively 64oz.

Just something to think about.