Good People and growlers in your living room

Enjoying a cold draft beer straight from a tap and is one of modern life's great pleasures (and one of the beer marketing industry's favorite topics). Unfortunately, few of us have the money or the technical knowledge to purchase, set up and maintain a tap system at home, so that means most of us must drink our draughts in a bar. That's all fine and good, but sometimes it is nice to enjoy a draft beer in your backyard or living room. It would be especially nice to sip on some Good People brews at home -- something that, until now, has been impossible without buying a keg.

Though you can have a glass of Good People brew (such as Coffee Oatmeal Stout or Fatso Imperial Stout) at many bars and restaurants in the Birmingham area, you can't just pick up a six-pack of Good People. The burgeoning brewery is still a small operation and does not yet offer bottled or canned beer.

Now, thanks to the folks at Dee's Package Store, there is an affordable way to bring some Good People home. Dee's is one of the few stores in Alabama that is legally allowed to sell draft beer to go, and the store is now offering Good People's heavily hopped Snake Handler IPA for off-premise consumption. You can have the nice folks there fill a half-gallon plastic milk jug (which they provide) with Snake Handler for $9.99. The 64-ounce containers hold slightly more than five 12-ounce beers.



If plastic jugs aren't your thing, then Good People is offering its fans an opportunity to drink their beer in style. See, back in the early days of this nation, breweries sometimes transported their suds to bars in half-gallon glass bottles called "growlers" (the name allegedly comes from the sound the bottle makes when it is opened). Nowadays, big metal kegs and smaller glass bottles do the trick, but many breweries still sell growlers. If you'd prefer to serve your brew from a real glass growler, then you can buy one online from Good People and have it filled up at Dee's (EDIT: It's possible Dee's may not be able to fill your growler. I'll call later, when they open, and ask). The brewery will be accepting pre-orders for empty growlers decorated with the company's logo on its website until June 25.

The Good People growlers are $5 a piece. If you order online you may receive an e-mail informing you that your purchase will be shipped to your house, but this is incorrect. Shipping those big glass bottles would be exceedingly expensive. Good People Brewery will contact customers to set up a time and location for growler pick-ups.

Delicious, high-gravity Alabama-brewed draft beer from a souvenir half-gallon glass bottle in the comfort of your own home. What could be better? Well, a home draft system and a keg of delicious, high-gravity Alabama-brewed beer, of course. But until then...

Visit www.goodpeoplebrewing.com to purchase a growler. Dee's Package Store is located at 2398 Green Springs Highway South. Call (205) 322-3333 for more information.

For even more info check out the Free The Hops blog post on the Good People growlers.

BONUS: For even more fun, root around in the Code of Alabama and see if you can figure out why Dee's is allowed to sell draft beer to go and other places aren't. You might want to start with Section 28, which deals with alcohol. This item, Section 28-3A-17, seems to allow the sale of draft beer to go:

Retail beer license for off-premises consumption.

Upon applicant's compliance with the provisions of this chapter and the regulations made thereunder, the board shall issue to applicant a retail beer license which will authorize the licensee to purchase beer, including draft beer in counties or municipalities where the sale thereof is permitted, in original unopened containers from licensed wholesalers and to sell such beer in packaged form at retail for off-premises consumption, where such use of the proposed location is not, at the time of the original application, prohibited by a valid zoning ordinance or other ordinance in the valid exercise of police power by the governing body of the municipality or county in which the retail outlet is located.

That suggests to me that Jefferson County or Birmingham has an ordinance against draft-to-go and that, as the Free The Hops blog post says, Dee's was grandfathered in. I'm just curious. If you know more, please leave a comment below.