Are you a Portlander? When you drink beer, is it from a local microbrewery? Oh, sorry, those two questions are redundant. If you’re a Portlander, of course you drink local beer, just like you drink coffee from a local roaster and buy whatever fruits and vegetables are in season at the farmers market. It’s part of doing your duty as a Portland citizen: supporting local businesses.

But even the most devoted locavore Portlanders can spend only so much time in beer halls and microbreweries (you’ve got to be at home sometimes, if only to feed the chickens, cook up those local veggies, trim your beard, dye your hair green or blue or red, wash your vintage plaid shirts and skirts, and dream up your next tattoo...). For those times at home, go for the growler.

It’s like a to-go container for beer. Most local breweries sell their own beers in kegs, of course, but the 64 ounces of a growler doesn’t require the commitment of a keg-erator in the basement. The growler is the more modest and adult answer to the problem of drinking local and reducing your carbon footprint all at once – no extra packaging for that six-pack a truck had to deliver to the grocery store.

Yes, the growler is the answer. And the answer to the growler is the Portland Growler Company. How cool would it be to have your own handmade, slip cast, ceramic jug to fill with beer at your favorite brewpub and growl on home with? There are three handle styles and three shades of glazes to choose from. They look as wholesome as a milk jug from the olden days, but also as quirky as Keep Portland Weird would have them be. (Handle designs include bike-sprocket and climbing Grigri inspired choices.)

The guys (and beer drinkers?) at Mudshark Studios were inspired to start the company two years ago, and they’re making the growlers to order, by hand, in their ceramics shop. They’ll customize orders with your own logo, too, if you happen to be a brewery, bar or pub (or just a beer drinking fanatic).

The jugs are cast thick to hold in the cold; a ceramic flip top lid with rubber gasket seals in the carbonation so your fresh-hopped IPA will be fresh for days. And coming soon, for the “lite” beer drinkers among us, a 32 oz. size!

You can order Portland Growlers online or find them at these local outposts:
Nepo 42
5403 NE 42nd Ave.  
Portland, OR 97218 

Green Dragon
928 SE 9th Ave.  
Portland, OR 97214

Beam & Anchor
2710 N Interstate Ave.
Portland, OR 97227