Beer-loving Floridians drink to freedom
This Fourth of July, Floridians celebrate their newfound freedom to get their beer in giant bottles.
The law legalizing 64-ounce growlers went into effect July 1, and South Florida microbreweries have been tying growler liberation to Independence Day.
Growlers are 32-, 64-, and 128-ounce bottles of beer that people can fill up at microbreweries and take home. The bottles are then returned, and a fresh growler purchased. The 64-ounce growler is the industry standard, but until July 1, that particular size was illegal in Florida.
Gallon growlers —128 ounces — could be sold previously, but the bottles were heavy and unwieldy.
“Also, they had a tendency to explode in the machine,” said
John Linn, brand director for the Funky Buddha Brewery in Oakland Park, South Florida’s largest microbrewery.
Florida previously allowed the sale of 32-ounce growlers, disparagingly known among some microbrew enthusiasts as “meowlers.”
For Corey Kraft, of Boca Raton, the decision to get a 64-ounce bottle on the first day it was available was a no-brainer.
“It’s fun to see the beer community here blow up,” he said. “Everyone seems to really be embracing it.”
Florida’s legalization of growlers comes after three failed legislative attempts. The ban on 64-ounce growlers went back to the fall of Prohibition, when large sizes of beers were kept illegal even as beer itself went back on the shelves.
When the legislature legalized some larger sizes more than a decade ago, it ushered in the beginning of Florida’s craft-beer scene. But the 64-ounce growler stayed banned. Its reintroduction faced opposition from large beer distributors in the state.
Before July1, only Florida outlawed the sale of 64-ounce bottles of beer. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia still ban breweries from selling any bottles or growlers for people to take home.
For microbrew fans in those states Linn had a simple message: “Keep hope alive.”