Crowlers come to Tacoma at Edison City Alehouse

Tacoma, meet the Crowler.

Edison City Alehouse, a taproom and bottle shop in Tacoma’s Edison neighborhood, is among the first in the area to offer the fresh-beer-in-a-can concept.

The Crowler works just like a growler jug, in that any fresh beer on tap can be poured into it. But instead of a glass or metal jug with a removable lid, the Crowler is a sealed aluminum can, keeping the beer fresh (for about a month) until it’s opened and consumed.

“It’s a steam sealer. You press a button and these arms come in and they crimp the lid on. It’s the same way canning works. The cans are 32 ounces,” explained Robby Bessey, who opened the alehouse and bottle shop seven months ago with business partner Andrew Babcock.

The can-on-demand Crowler is such a new invention that only a handful of taprooms and breweries in the state offer the service.

For beer fans, a Crowler is less of an investment than a growler and is ideal for collecting small-batch tastes of seasonals that disappear quickly from tap lists. What might flip growler fans into Crowler fanatics is that the sealing of the beer inside a clean can means little worry of oxidation or contamination of the brew, an occasional problem for poorly sealed growlers. Cost is also lower, at $7-$11 for a Crowler, contrasted with $12-$24 for a growler fill.

Bessey and Babcock are first-time business owners, but neither is new to the beer industry. Both have held brewery or beer-related jobs in Seattle. In researching opening a business together, they settled on Tacoma because “Seattle is too saturated,” Bessey said.

They’re focusing their 14-tap alehouse on hard-to-find seasonals, sours, saisons and other sought-after beers.

“We try hard to balance Northwest and local-to-Pierce County beers,” Bessey said. “Mostly, we’re making available the best beers we can find, whether they’re from New York or Oregon. But we definitely want to promote the local beer community.”

In that regard, Edison City Alehouse is another great destination to sample beer made in the area. Pierce County brewers consistently dominate the taps, including this week’s offering of Odd Otter, Wingman, Harmon, and Pacific Brewing & Malting — all from Tacoma — and M.T. Head from Graham. The alehouse also has been offering special small batch ciders from Finnriver, the Chimacum cidery.

In June, the alehouse began offering grilled sandwiches to round out its beer offerings. I dug into two excellent sandwiches. The South Side ($8) was a pressed sandwich stacked with smoked ham, salami, provolone, basil and an olive spread that lended the flavor of a muffaletta. The ’Shington ($8) was a tall affair with quadruple-layered roast beef, snappy bell peppers, havarti and a heavy swipe of nose-tingling horseradish. Bessey warns that the alehouse can only make two sandwiches at a time, which might translate into a long wait.

Also on the menu: a vegetarian hummus sandwich, a peanut butter and honey, turkey breast and pesto, and smoked ham and gruyere sandwich. In the cooler section, find a wide assortment of domestic and import craft beer.

This story was originally published September 22, 2015 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Crowlers come to Tacoma at Edison City Alehouse."