Drink the rainbow
Growlers have always been something of a fashion statement, but Northwest Brew Gear is taking that to the next level.
The new shop a block west of Budge Brothers offers growlers in a variety of materials (glass, plastic, stainless steel), sizes (from 16 ounces to a full gallon) and colors – a rainbow of reds and greens, oranges and yellows, purples and blues.
“No one else out there is doing all these colors,” says owner Michael Scally. “The colors are endless.”
Scally is showing off his wares in a soft opening Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with the grand opening scheduled for March 13-14.
It all started a couple of years ago when he was drinking at Budge with a bicyclist friend who was wishing for a better way to carry beer home than a heavy, fragile glass growler – something like a Capri Sun pouch for adults.
Scally went online and found exactly that, the Flexi-Growler, which he began distributing to a few area breweries.
Those didn’t prove particularly durable, so he switched to lightweight hard plastic growlers, which are popular at Budge during discount fill days on Wednesdays.
“In Montana, they call them river growlers,” Scally says. If you don’t want to haul them around when you’re done, they’re crushable and recyclable, which is affordable at a cost of $4.
He also got into glass, and currently carries those in 32-ounce (“squewler”) and 128-ounce (“grumbler”) sizes along with the standard 64, plus Grolsch-style flip-tops in 16 and 32 ounces.
There’s also stainless steel, in 32- and 64-ounce sizes, both single- and double-walled. The latter, Scally says, keep beer cold for three days without refrigeration.
All the glass and steel growlers come in custom colors, off the shelf or in special orders of as few as a half-dozen. “We can do 2,200 different colors,” Scally says.
And, he adds, “Everything is done within 100 miles of here – I don’t have to ship it out.”
He also plans to carry sports team decals, so customers can put together their own logo and color combinations.
After selling wholesale to breweries out of his house and retail online, Scally found his storefront location last fall, a former video production business at 25 N. Napa.
It’s done up in a funky, rustic style. Corrugated metal from an old roof lines the walls throughout the store. Decorations, collected from family and friends, range from fishing rods to license plates, tools to tractor seats, with beer paraphernalia mixed in.
In one corner, next to a secondhand couch, a metal case holds a collection of old comic books.
“This place is going to be like my home,” says Scally, who plans to host tastings and eventually add a fill station. “I’m going to make it comfortable for anybody who wants to come here and spend some time.”