By Willie Simpson
The take-home glass flagon, or ''growler'', as it's commonly known, is one of the fastest-growing trends among craft beer outlets, but red tape surrounding excise issues is threatening to strangle its growth.
Most growlers hold 1.89 litres - a half gallon in the US measure - and are filled directly from kegs through a dispensing system; customers buy their empty glass growler for about $15 and pay $18 and upwards to have them filled. They fit easily in a fridge and stay well carbonated over a couple of days, once opened.
Too much red tape ... Mark Mead, of Warners at the Bay, offers craft beers in refillable vessels.Credit: Peter Stoop
''It's allowed us access to beers which we couldn't otherwise find in packaged form,'' says Mark Mead, the bottle-shop manager of Warners at the Bay, a Lake Macquarie specialty beer outlet that carries more than 1000 beer brands. ''Murray's [Craft] Brewing Company does one-off brews in kegs for two or three bars and us, and we've had beer from the Rocks Brewing Company and Wig and Pen, who make draught-only beer.''
Mead says he was inspired to install a growler-filling system a year ago after a holiday in New Zealand.
''I visited [a bottle shop] in Wellington where guys came in and filled up plastic 'riggers' [PET bottles] from taps on a wall. I thought it could be done a bit classier,'' he says.
''I bought a Chinese-built system on the net, which is really a glorified 'miracle box' [dispense system] with eight taps. It's a stunning-looking machine and catches everyone's attention. It's a huge hit on Friday nights with people buying them to watch the footy.''
Mead bought a pallet of 1000-odd growlers from the US and has sold almost the entire shipment.
''Most of our regular customers own two growlers - a few have got three or four growlers on the go, and there are some beer clubs that buy several at a time,'' he says.
The excise issue involves a two-tier system that means containers holding 48 litres or less are taxed at a higher rate than those that hold more. In other words, beer inside a 50-litre keg - the industry standard - is taxed at a lower rate than smaller kegs, bottles and cans; but once the beer is poured from a 50-litre keg into a growler, for instance, it attracts the higher tax rate.
The Tax Office guidelines for growlers are ''confused and confusing'', says Richard Adamson, the co-owner of Young Henry's, Sydney's newest craft brewery based in Newtown. ''Because we're filling them from inside our bonded area, we pay the higher rate,'' he says.
''We do a 'swap and go' where customers bring in their empty growler and we supply a full one. It means we can offer takeaway beer without commissioning a bottling line.''
Adamson says his biggest customer is the Sydney Theatre Company bar, which sells growlers and single glasses poured from growlers to theatre patrons. ''They're going through about 90 growlers a week,'' he says.
To avoid the cumbersome paperwork involved in completing excise returns, many growler outlets are dealing exclusively with 30-litre kegs, where the higher tax rate has already been paid by the breweries.
''We own a fleet of 15 30-litre kegs, which we send out to breweries to fill,'' says Eden Gilbert, the manager of Blackhearts & Sparrows bottle-shop in Fitzroy North, Melbourne. ''The freight cost is an extra expense and wastage during filling is a pain.''
Outlets can apply for a licence ''to store excisable products'' and pay the tax differential themselves but the paperwork is onerous and none that I speak to have taken the step.
''We've got enough headaches without the extra running around,'' Gilbert says. ''We're already paying WET [the wine equalisation tax] and GST as it is.''
Even the ATO seems to be confused, with its guidelines saying: ''Growlers are generally refillable two-litre glass jugs that are filled with beer from a keg and sealed for the customer to take away or to consume on the premises.'' Everyone I contact sells growlers exclusively as take-home products and the ATO definition suggests that any bars selling jugs should somehow pay the higher tax rate on that beer.