Procurement of Kegs > irked...

[Hentai]

I am currently looking for another keg. I have home brewed beer for year the last 10 or so, on a 3 keg system, 2 I bought at a flea market, one was at my brother place (surely not returned after a party), basically ALL "ILLEGAL".

So the last couple of weeks, I have been searching around and seeing if I cannot find a reasonable source for a keg for my (under construction) still. Plenty of illegal ones on eBay or occasionally on craigslist, or at least they legitimacy is questionable. I am having a hard time finding a legitimate keg for sale. ALL the links below DO NOT offer used kegs. ALL of them. Correct me if I am wrong. The final one, I called, they do not have a single new or used 1/2 barrel for sale. I wish someone could show me where to buy a reasonably price, truly legit keg.

So what is irking me, and I get it, the whole "breweries (or my business) pays $150 for these kegs and your stealing them for $30." I understand this argument. This argument has been around for a long time. Today, as I sit trying to find a legal keg, I am really figgin annoyed by it. This is true, and if I STOLE a keg after it has been filled, virgin, for the very first time, and I kept it. Yes then the brewery is losing its $150-$30 deposit. Trust me, each keg has its value to the company selling thier product and on the 100th time 15.5 gallons sold out of a given keg, is it still worth $150, and at that point, TRUST ME, on the books, according to thier accountant, that keg has been devalued and written of well before it is stolen.

Alright, I didnt say, I am going to go steal a keg, just annoyed.

Oh yeah, and Ben below, our 1 post Keg friend. I live about a mile from his warehouse. I left him a message yesterday before I saw this post in the newbie forum. I told him about my needs and that I am a member of a home brew club (also about a mile from his warehouse). That there are several people interested in finding legal kegs locally. Wonder if I will get a call back, maybe he is too busy working a second job to pay for all the stolen kegs!

Here are a few places to legitimately buy kegs:

Franke Bev Systems http://www.franke.com/beveragesystems/d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow ... iners.html
Sabco http://www.brew-magic.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Tosca http://www.toscaltd.com/industriesservedbeerkegs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Schaefer http://usedbeerkegs.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I write this as an owner of a small company that rents beer kegs to micro-brewers and also suffers through loss thru theft of kegs. So, I would encourage you to do the right thing going forward now that you have more information on the subject. If you were in the keg owners shoes I am pretty sure you would share our opinion.

Thanks for reading an having an open mind.

Ben Shipper
KegCraft Keg Management Services
http://www.KegCraft.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[rad14701]

Nobody said finding a legally sourced keg would be easy in all communities, but that surely doesn't make a good excuse for folks to be stealing them... Your argument that the accountants age keg purchases off the books is only partially accurate because the distributor also expects to receive a scrap value for it and the accountant also takes that value into consideration... And then if you factor in the increase in the price of a new keg you can see where this becomes an issue...

Any stainless steel vessel is fair game as a boiler in my book... Sure, kegs are easy but having run larger boilers I can say I'd probably never need even a beer keg at this point... I'm happy doing smaller runs, even though I'd be happy with runs slightly larger than what I am doing currently... I've actually entertained soldering or tig welding two large stock pots together for an in between sized boiler with a volume of 30 - 40 liters... My problem is that I have more ideas and materials resources than money and space...

[RumBrewer]

I've had the same thought. If it's worth $150 make the damn deposit $150! IT's been the norm in the auto parts business for years! I once installed an alternator that retailed for $75 and the core deposit was $125... Just because they wanted that core!

That being said, find a local brewery and tell them you need a keg. They'll sell you one. And don't say you don't have a local. I drive 100 miles one way to get to Falling Rock... the closest local.

[King Of Hearts]

Try one of these. http://www.probrewer.com/probrewer/mark ... rodscat=49" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Padraig]

Kegs.com has some nice 7.75gallon kegs for $69. http://www.kegs.com/products/7-75-gal-a ... nkey-kegs/

-P

[rubber duck]

They're not that hard for me to find. Breweries decommission them all the time.

Another option is the scrap yard, It may not be a totally legit way to procure a keg but if it's going to the chipper anyway...

[Nimrod]

Kegs.com has some nice 7.75gallon kegs for $69. http://www.kegs.com/products/7-75-gal-a ... nkey-kegs/

-P

I ordered one from them, fast shipping, looked great

[Hentai]

Nobody said finding a legally sourced keg would be easy in all communities, but that surely doesn't make a good excuse for folks to be stealing them... Your argument that the accountants age keg purchases off the books is only partially accurate because the distributor also expects to receive a scrap value for it and the accountant also takes that value into consideration... And then if you factor in the increase in the price of a new keg you can see where this becomes an issue...

Its not stealing.

I would love to add a reasonable counter argument to the hub hub. The scrap value nothing, really. The potential value or income is MUCH bigger issue that replacement issue. A kegs can live 20 years or more (or so I read) so if a keg serves 30 times a year, cheap beers go for minimum $60, triple that for a bar, that is min $1800 a year (totally my guess), so for 20 years a keg might sell, retail (not bar retail) $36,000 worth of beer. I know the little guys might fair worse... the $12 a 4 pack or $8 a bomber... really. OK. Really off subject. But yeah they may suffer a bit, but homebrewers and online distillers maybe subject to a tad bit of propaganda.. InBev only made Euro13.5 BILLION last year.

Dont forget I have preached the need to find legal kegs in the past and I am in search of decommissioned kegs... just asking us to think...

[rad14701]

Its not stealing.

The best answer to this rebuttal is that as long as the keg belongs to the distributor or brewery, it's stealing...

Let me put it in a perspective that's easier to understand... Let's say that at 50 years of age you still own the car your father gave you for your 16th. birthday... I'll just come and take it out of your driveway because you've gotten your 34 years of use out of it... You've run thousands of gallons of gas through it, provided it with timely oil changes, performed regular maintenance to keep it in great shape, and even restored it along the way... I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it now because I really like that year and model of car and I just want it... After all, you've got a couple other cars in the driveway anyway so what's one car... That's not stealing, right...???

Oh, but wait... No, that's not how I got the car... This guy at the local convenience store had it and said he'd sell it to me cheap to support his drug habit... I don't think it was his to sell but man was that a great score... Geez, I didn't know it was your car, I just really wanted one like it and the guy was willing to sell it to me cheap... But if I paid the guy for it that's not stealing, right...???

I really don't know when society grayed the line between stealing and legally procuring other peoples belongings...

[RumBrewer]

InBev only made Euro13.5 BILLION last year.
.

So.... If a person... or group of persons (Sometimes called a company) makes enough money it's not stealing when you take their stuff?

[PolishedPA]

I think the term 'stealing' is being used quite loosely here. When you guys are referring to "legal procurement" are you saying buying a keg from the beer dist that they are going to take out of the rotation? For my 5 years in college, i worked at a beer distributor. Just for example, a Coors Lt 16 gal keg,15.5, was $62.20 plus a $10 deposit. The deposit had to be cash and kept in a seperate box for 4-6 months. If after the 6 month period, if the person didnt bring the keg back, they simply lost their deposit. Ive heard the argument for making the deposit $150 to completely cover the cost of the keg, but that is just unrealistic. Noone would buy a keg for 60 and leave a 150 deposit. Its not as big of a deal as its being made out to be. We would keep the empty kegs in the back and occasionaly someone would come in and want to buy one. We would simply charge them the deposit. Not saying its right, just the way it was. Of course things may have changed drastically since then, that was back in 2001-2005. I cant remember it happening too often(people buying emptys). With home brewing and distilling being more popular, maybe it is a much bigger problem now. Just my 2 cents.

[King Of Hearts]

If it's in the scrap yard, it's going to be scrapped. To me that's legal. It's no concern of mine how it got there. To me it's more of a keg rescue. Great place to get copper & stainless too.

[PolishedPA]

If it's in the scrap yard, it's going to be scrapped. To me that's legal. It's no concern of mine how it got there. To me it's more of a keg rescue. Great place to get copper & stainless too.

I agree with you 100%. A scrap yard isnt a keg storage facility, its their final resting place. The last time i went looking for copper at one of the yards here, they could only point me to a barrel full of wire. Either they were holdin out on me or had gotten picked clean previously.

[jake_leg]

Pubs and bars sometime have left over kegs when they change supplier or go out of business. Breweries often only pick up empty kegs when they deliver more beer. So guess what happens to them. The same as happens to any object of value that gets left unattended.

In law the kegs are still the property of the brewery, and scrap yards can be fined for taking them. The laws are actually enforced in the UK although the fines are still pretty small compared to the value of the kegs. Someone in London was recently busted with 1,000 kegs and got a GBP 1,000 fine. But the fact that the laws are enforced at all is obviously quite a large deterrent because it is pretty hard to get hold of kegs in the UK.

It sounds to me like whoever is in charge of enforcing the law in the USA has no interest in doing so. If they did they would start by regulating the scrap merchants who pay cash for them.

In my book there is absolutely no difference between buying a nicked keg off a scrap dealer and buying a nicked keg off anyone else. There is a difference between buying a nicked keg and nicking it yourself. It's the difference between larceny and handling stolen goods. In the UK at least, handling stolen goods is not considered a terribly serious offence. Fences are useful informants apart from anything else.

[RumBrewer]

It's no concern of mine how it got there.

Yeah, that kind of attitude is why this discussion ALWAYS leads to flaming parties. It is your concern, and ignorance is no excuse... especially if you put effort into your ignorance.

That being said, what we have to do is our best. We have to put genuine effort into sourcing kegs as ethically as we can.

No, they don't come with titles, and there are a lot of levels that you can take this discussion. But the fact is, if you are buying something from someone that isn't authorized to sell it to you.... you're doing something seriously wrong. It's called purchasing stolen goods, and you could end up in jail.

We all accept different levels of criminal activity, That is why we are here. So if you are comfortable "Buying" a keg from your buddy from behind the liquor store, go for it. If you are comfortable hoping over the fence behind your local brewer and taking one off his back dock in the middle of the night, do that.
But don't fool yourself... and more importantly, stop trying to convince me that you're not doing anything wrong. If you're not buying it from a company like MicroStar or the brewery itself, you're taking something that belongs to someone else!

[junkyard dawg]

I'm not wanting to argue with ya Rumbrewer, but I don't quite see buying a keg from a scrapyard as wrong at all. I have no idea how or why a keg ends up in a scrap yard. I too, don't care. I assume at least a few of them are officially decommissioned by a brewery. In any case, they are sold to a legit business, who in turn resells them in another legit transaction. I have no qualms at all about buying a keg from a scrapper. I think its much preferable to forfeiting a deposit or outright stealing.

[likkerfirst]

If you did forfiet a deposit, you owe it to the company to buy and drink as much of their beer as possible!

[King Of Hearts]

Stop yourselves. These are AB or Miller kegs, not some struggling micro brewer.

[blind drunk]

This discussion reminds me of the delivery milk crates that everybody used to steal to store their record albums. Perfect fit. The milk companies eventually got wind and started having them manufactured just slightly smaller so records could no longer fit. And then the music industry invented 8 track tapes and we were all screwed

[RumBrewer]

Stop yourselves. These are AB or Miller kegs, not some struggling micro brewer.

Hell yes! Screw the man!
Rotten successful businesses! How dare they!

See y'all on distiller threads, I'm done with this one!

[GuyFawkes]

It seems to me that these companies are not taking enough measure to stop this theft. I don't think it should be the responsibilty of the individual to fully check the keg he/she is buying to validate that it is indeed legit, for all we know it could be cheap because it is decommissioned.

Maybe if these companies are losing so much money they ought to take greater measures to protect their assets.... the idea of capitalism is those that are able to overcome given obstacles the greatest survive, well here's your obstacle. If it's a small microbrewery, they could probably keep track of the few kegs by making deposits higher and affixing tags to the kegs that could identify them as stolen for any scrap yards or whatever, like a VIN for a car or a serial number for a gun. If it's a large brewery then they could probably afford to mass produce some cheap GPS trackers to affix to them and alert authorities to retrieve the keg after a given time.

That said, if it's blatant that it is stolen: don't buy it. But if you are getting it from a legit supplier like a scrap yard, I don't see how it's at all your fault. It's like buying something from a pawn shop in my mind, there's some risk that it's stolen but it's not really your duty to check.

/rant

[Prairiepiss]

That may be how you see it. But the law doesn't see it that way. If its stolen property and you are in possession of it. Guess what. Yep they have you. Without proper documentation of purchase. You are just holding stolen property. Pretty cut and dry.

[blind drunk]

My keg says it's the property of "so and so" as do my soda pop kegs. By law, I'm supposed call the respective companies and turn them in. I purchased my beer keg legally from a guy at a yard sale and I was given the soda pop kegs from a guy at the dump. Should I return them? Should I have called the police and report said folks? Rhetorical, of course.

[King Of Hearts]

That may be how you see it. But the law doesn't see it that way. If its stolen property and you are in possession of it. Guess what. Yep they have you. Without proper documentation of purchase. You are just holding stolen property. Pretty cut and dry.

Thats great. You dont have any stolen kegs. I wish kegs were the only problem.

[GuyFawkes]

That may be how you see it. But the law doesn't see it that way. If its stolen property and you are in possession of it. Guess what. Yep they have you. Without proper documentation of purchase. You are just holding stolen property. Pretty cut and dry.

I think the still attached to it would be of greater concern.....I don't actually use/own kegs, that's just my opinion, but I think we all know what we use kegs for here. I don't advocate going out and stealing a still, in fact I believe that's unethical and wrong. But really, any legal penalties would be a slap on the wrist (a speeding ticket would be worse), not of much concern, and I don't think we can be expected to pay full price for a keg when we can get one cheaper from a scrap yard so long as there's no indication it is stolen.

[junkyard dawg]

PP, you just scored some kegs...

You worried about getting in trouble for having them?

[FreeMountainHermit]

I am currently looking for another keg.

100% LEGAL !!!!!!! I have bought from them. They are also available set up for 2 inch or 4 inch tri-clamps ready to attach your copper.


http://thevintnervault.com/product/3381/Used-Kegs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

FMH.

[junkyard dawg]

rumbrewer,

why are you bailing on a good spirited discussion?

[junkyard dawg]

FMH

great link....

[Prairiepiss]

PP, you just scored some kegs...

You worried about getting in trouble for having them?

I don't know what your talking about??

I bought a 2 tap kegging system. The guy gave me 2 kegs. Said plain out he wouldn't sell them to me. But would give them to me to go with the taps. Told me where he was getting them from. And stated it would be illegal for him to sell them to me. So they are for swapping for new kegs for my keggerator I'm building.

And the others are older then I am. Not used anymore. So I'm not worried about them. And are going to make a cool piece for my brewery//distillery.