With the craft beer craze in full swing, a new way to bring home your favourite fresh beer has popped up in Vancouver. 

The crowler, which combines the take-home convenience of a growler with the recyclability of an aluminum can, allows beer drinkers to get a one-time one-litre fill of one of four beers on tap at Granville Island Brewing’s tap room (1441 Cartwright Street).

“It’s taking the idea of the growler—that fresh beer, filled and ready to go—and the very popular can design, and joining them together,” says Mike Sharpham, beer merchant for the brewery.

The large cans one-up the traditional glass growler in a few ways: first, the aluminum cans keep light away from the beer. Light exposure can toy with the taste of a beer if the growler is stored incorrectly.

Second, growlers don’t seal very well, and, as anyone who owns one knows, they are not exactly the easiest to clean. Even a drop of skunky, leftover beer can affect the way your next fill will taste.

Third, their smaller size and lightweight material make them much more portable.

“Compared to a growler, the advantage is multifold, in that it’s great if you’re going on a hike, or somewhere you don’t want to lug around glass bottles or a six-pack,” says Sharpham.

“If you’re heading to a barbecue or a backyard party and you had a growler, you’d be keeping an eye on it, and trying to bring it home later. With the crowler, it’s easily recycled and not something you’d have to worry about forgetting.”

The innovation was originally developed by Ball Corporation and created in partnership with Oskar Blues Brewery, based in Longmont, Colorado.

Using an oversized canning machine, the crowlers are purged of all oxygen—a serious beer degrader—before being filled with your beer of choice and then sealed.

“The same beers that we can fill into our growlers in the tap room and retail store can also go into the crowlers,” says Sharpham.

Currently, Granville Island is offering their Hey Day Hefezweizen, Two Tides India Session Ale, their small-batch unfiltered KellerBier, and a small-batch  Belgian-style saison for crowler fills.

Other local breweries that also offer the crowler system is Port Moody’s Moody Ales and North Vancouver's Bridge Brewing Company.