Hi all,
I recently moved to Houston, Texas from Phoenix, Arizona and wow what a difference in beer laws!
Anyway, in Phoenix, I could pretty much take my 5 gallon kegs to any brewery and they would fill them. Apparently there are some laws against that here in Texas if the brewery distributes their beer.
So I was wondering if anyone knows of any places that will fill your keg in the Houston area?
Good luck. I go to Houston 3 or so times a year for work. I’m usually there a week so the 1st couple times I went I asked about getting growlers filled at BJ’s and this other craft beer place called the Petro Station (great place by the way). They all looked at me like I was crazy.
If you find something post it here because I would be interested as well.
It’s not a real long drive to Louisiana. Although I’m not sure they’re much better there. :cheers:
Here in Houston I don’t know if any place to fill a 5-gal keg, and I doubt anyplace legally can.
There are lots of places, though, to get growlers filled. Not sure about Dahoove31’s experiences, but I have gotten growler fills plenty of times at the Petrol Station and BJ’s. Several of the Whole Foods stores have beer & wine bars that fill growlers. And then there are these options:
http://premiumdraught.com/ http://growlersbeerandwine.com/Per the laws, technically places that can sell growler fills can also sell kegs. If you have a beer and wine only license and sell growlers, I do not remember there being a cap. For example, a brewpub can sell kegs of their own beer to the consumer out of their establishment.
Most people probably don’t do keg fills because they wouldn’t make much money off of it. Think about the price you’re charged for a pint. With a growler, you get a discount. Scale that up to a slim keg. Not much off. Half BBL, even less. Plus it takes 10 minutes or so to fill a keg so it’s a bit more taxing on resources. A brewpub would be willing to sell you a keg of their own but filling some possibly dirty customer keg might get a funny look. Harder to control quality.
I will admit it was 2 years ago at BJ’s when I asked. It was the one up by Willowbrook mall off of the Tomball HWY. Petro was last year, but they were really busy that day and I asked the person that brought out our food. Do you have to bring in your own growler or something. Like I said I’m there a week at a time and stay at a hotel with a kitchen so I would rather get a growler of something. Specially some of the stuff Petro carries.
[quote=“beeristhemindkiller”]Per the laws, technically places that can sell growler fills can also sell kegs. If you have a beer and wine only license and sell growlers, I do not remember there being a cap. For example, a brewpub can sell kegs of their own beer to the consumer out of their establishment.
Most people probably don’t do keg fills because they wouldn’t make much money off of it. Think about the price you’re charged for a pint. With a growler, you get a discount. Scale that up to a slim keg. Not much off. Half BBL, even less. Plus it takes 10 minutes or so to fill a keg so it’s a bit more taxing on resources. A brewpub would be willing to sell you a keg of their own but filling some possibly dirty customer keg might get a funny look. Harder to control quality.[/quote]
True; however, a lot of breweries do fill the 5 gallon kegs for customers regardless (assuming it is legal there). Often I’ve been asked if my keg is clean and sanitized (of course it always was), and if it wasn’t, they’d either 1) deny it or 2) charge extra for them to clean it. It has never been an issue in that regard.
I was just hoping that places in Houston would do the fills. Being new here, I wasn’t quite sure if any did. Looks like I’m up creek!
