Free the beer!
You may recall that D’Vines, the beer and wine store on 14th, recently started selling beer in growlers — basically, you could buy or bring in a growler, which is a big beer bottle with a resealable cap, and get fresh beer on draft.
However, it turns out that wasn’t permitted under the retail liquor license D’Vines and their sister store DeVino’s in Adams Morgan have. The city’s Alcohol Beverage Regulatory Administration told them to stop and that only places with a Class D license for manufacturers could do that, like breweries.
Owner George Aguilar isn’t giving up, however. He really likes the idea, both because the beer tastes good and is good for the environment as you’d be reusing bottles. He even set up a website and had planned to install more draft lines. He said he’s going to advocate for allowing growlers to be sold and filled at retail liquor stores. I don’t see why not.
Some of the City Paper commenters expressed concern that with growlers, people who drink on the street would be able to get more beer. However, that’s not really the point. The main idea is to get fresh beer, and I would assume that freshness isn’t the most important thing if you’re drinking the cheap stuff. Plus 40s are already plenty big, and the growlers were required to have a shrink-wrapped top.
Picture from here
