Crowlers: A Viable Replacement for Growlers?

A friend recently linked me to this article about Oskar Blues selling their crowler machines to other bars and breweries.

I've made my feelings known about the utility of growlers in the past. To summarize briefly: growlers are awkward, cumbersome, difficult to clean and fill properly, and only keep beer fresh for a very short time. Their great success is, I think, owed more to a lack of viable alternatives than any inherent virtues.

So, enter the crowler. A crowler is essentially an on-demand 32oz can of beer that can be created using a modified tabletop metal seamer. It's half the size of a standard growler, but the benefits are numerous: it stays as fresh as a brewery-canned beer until opened, doesn't require cleaning (as the can is recycled like any other aluminum product when it's empty), and can be taken places glass growlers can't (like on camping trips or river floats).

The downsides? Well, unlike glass growlers, once you open a crowler, you've got to drink the whole thing - there's no way to reseal it and save some for later. It also requires the bar or brewery to invest in the tabletop seamer machine and have the canning materials on hand, which I imagine would raise the cost to the consumer a little bit.

But overall, I think it's pretty clear that having an on-demand, keg-fresh 32oz can of beer is vastly superior to the growler experience. I've had many a second-day serving from a growler and thereby suffered through a flat, oxidized mockery of the beer that was great just a day before, and I'd be willing to give that up, no questions asked.

So here's hoping that crowlers or similar on-demand canning technology takes off and quickly supplants growlers as the preferred way to take keg-fresh beer home.