Growling Through Athens
While ELV was out of town last week, visiting his ancestral home, he stumbled upon an idea that might be perfect for Las Vegas: Beer Growlers!
For the uninitiated, beer growlers are a way to drink fresh, artisanal keg beer at home, without the muss and fuss of actually purchasing 15.5 gallons of the stuff.
The way it works is simple: you pick the size of the growler you want, and then choose with what great brew you’d like it filled. The returnable growlers are then sealed and you gaily* dance home, knowing you’re drinking the freshest, least adulterated beer or ale you can get.
The Beer Growler in the college town of Athens (Georgia, not Texas), is a relatively new enterprise that showed ELV how it’s done. It calls itself a “beer filling station” but it’s decidedly not for the Bud Lite crowd. Brews like Monk’s Sour Ale and Bell’s Hopslam are the order of the day, and its employees (Jordan and Ashlie with an “ie”) were the kind of energetic and knowledgeable beer lovers that Vegas could use more of.
Vegas being Vegas, however, we’re still swimming up the craft beer stream, as it were, as most locals still think Newcastle Brown Ale is as cutting edge as it gets.
Still, all we could think to ourselves as we were prowling around the Growler was how much at home such a place would feel on East Fremont Street. And how, it’s about time someone challenged the corporate and boring Yard House (and the grimy and sketchy Freaking Frog) for bringing forth superior pours in our humble burg.
Just thought you’d like to know.
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* As in spirited and full of merriment.
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
January 25th, 2012 at 8:28 am
That’s the closest I’ve ever seen to a beer IV.
Fremont could use that with some good live music.
January 25th, 2012 at 8:48 am
I would travel to Freemont street weekly if Bell’s Hopslam was available! Unfortunately, not yet.
January 25th, 2012 at 9:00 am
There are a few places in town where you can get a growler fill, but you usually need to BYO growler. The only place downtown I can think of is Main Street Station’s Triple 7 brewpub and I don’t consider that much of an option. A good beer spot would definitely get my downtown more often.
January 25th, 2012 at 10:07 am
The beer at Triple 7 is not the best but I’ve had fun there.
There is definite lack of pretension there that makes it a nice fit to that side of Fremont.
January 25th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
I wish Vegas could get Bell’s Hopslam. Vegas needs to step up at get Russian River too.
January 25th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Check out public house at Venetian, has over 200 craft beers along with it’s own ciccerone to navigate the beers.
January 25th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I believe Chicago Brewing Cigar Bar @ 4 Queens could fill a growler, and I think I saw someone order one from a bewildered new employee.
Away from it all, Big Dog’s Draft House has growlers just before you run out of town on the north end of Rancho.
And if BJ’s Pizza in Vegas is like BJ’s elsewhere — why not, it’s a chain — they also will have growlers available.
January 27th, 2012 at 7:56 am
Thanks to great wisdom at city hall, growler fills are illegal in the City of Las Vegas. Big Dogs and maybe others were grandfathered out of the law.
January 29th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Aces and Ales on Nellis has the best craft beer draft selection in town. They get a lot of rare/limited brews like Stone (Imperial Russian Stout) , Deschutes (Abyss), Dog Fish (120 min IPA), Sierra Nevada (25th Anniversary Ales). They sell and fill growlers. Owner was the drummer for Alice & Chains.