Well...Finally found some kegs to convert to keggles

I have been scanning craigslist for a few months looking for someone selling 1/2 barrel kegs in my area, with no luck. checked with a couple of local liquor stores that distribute keg beer, no go. so finally it occured to me to call this place the county over from me, about 1/2 the way to work. all this guy does is sell keg beer. he says, sure, just bring me a $30 deposit each. went over at lunch today, he had a big stack of empties, he said pick em out. so I grabbed 2 bud kegs looked almost brand new, cha ching $60 bucks and i was on my way.

Now the fun begins to convert them.

<puts flameproof suit on>

now I know this subject has been beat to death...but isn't Hefeluver just buying a keg shell from a "vendor". My LHBS sells keg beer and they do the same thing. I figure I could go to a scrap yard and look for a keg but isn't that the same thing? Buying a keg from an "unauthorized" vendor? It would seem to me that the only way to get a legal keg is either to buy one brand new or directly from the owner of a brewery. my .02.....

Phunhog said:

now I know this subject has been beat to death...but isn't Hefeluver just buying a keg shell from a "vendor". My LHBS sells keg beer and they do the same thing. I figure I could go to a scrap yard and look for a keg but isn't that the same thing? Buying a keg from an "unauthorized" vendor? It would seem to me that the only way to get a legal keg is either to buy one brand new or directly from the owner of a brewery. my .02.....

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guess you could call it that. i tried a couple other outlets, and they said absolutely not. This guy told me come and get as many as I want, and I told him what it was for. He knew all about converting them. He said the breweries have no way to keep track of them all with all the people with tappers and thousands of kegs in circulation. and you mention legal. well paying the keg deposit makes it Legal

The distributor never owned the kegs, they are only borrowed with the price of the deposit as collateral. The brewery owns the keg.

The distributor does not have the legal standing to transfer ownership.
The deposit is not the selling price.

Did the distribuor give you a bill of sale so you can prove you bought them legally?

Buying from a scrap yard is something completely different. If it is there, you, the purchaser, can assume that ownership was transferred legally and the scrapyard will provide a Bill of Sale.

and we all make sure we have a legal bill of sale, so it's all good

Egbert said:

The distributor never owned the kegs, they are only borrowed with the price of the deposit as collateral. The brewery owns the keg.

The distributor does not have the legal standing to transfer ownership.
The deposit is not the selling price.

Did the distribuor give you a bill of sale so you can prove you bought them legally?

Buying from a scrap yard is something completely different. If it is there, you, the purchaser, can assume that ownership was transferred legally and the scrapyard will provide a Bill of Sale.

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Well yes, i received a cash register reciept.

So what, now do i have to worry about the Keg police battering down my door ??

yep, you're screwed. the keg police are hot on your trail, and they will find you, as they're associated with scotch...land yard...

lumpher said:

and we all make sure we have a legal bill of sale, so it's all good

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A legal bill of sale or receipt will cure many ills, not only for something like this. Prosecution requires intent to commit a crime.

As you brew, over the years, your keggles will last a long time. You never know who will visit your place. I keg in cornies, the guy across the street works for Pepsi, his brother is a city cop. He asked me how I acquire my cornies.

It never hurts to do the right thing.

I buy my cornies from a beverage company who is getting forced into bag in a box no bill of sale and I feel I am legally buying them. when I said I need 100 and they said no problem im pretty sure they are legit.

-=Jason=-

I don't know how buying from a scrapyard is considered "legal". Do they only accept kegs from breweries? The keg could of been "recycled" by someone for a little extra cash. Essentially the scrapyard is buying an illegal keg, since it still belongs to the brewery.

It seems to me that if you pay a deposit for something, that is giving the vendor a monetary compensation, so that if you do not return the item, then they have been compensated for it. Think about this, soda bottles used to have a deposit on them. Some probably still do. If you do not return those bottles are you breaking a law? I don't think so. I would probably guess that the breweries do not pay more that $30-40 per keg. They get their money back. I don't think any laws are broken. I'll check, though, someone in my immediate family is an attorney and no it's not my Brother-in-law!

The kegs cost much more than $30-$40. The recovery just in scrap is about that.
I asked my local brewer what they pay for them a couple weeks ago so I could look into buying some under the bulk buy they were doing and it was over $100. They used to do 6.5 gallon kegs, they don't any longer, too many were being kept, at a large loss.

in the case of the bottle deposits, they were not so the brewer cold recover the $.05, they were an incentive to collect them and turn them in. Anyone old enough could remember the sides of highways littered with bottles and cans. It worked, the highways and gutters and public places got cleaned up.

The keg deposit, is just an incentive to return the keg, not the purchase price.

I too once thought the price of keg must have been the deposit amount but was shown the light and had rotten fruit thrown at me for even thinking such a thought.

-=Jason=-

I don't want to beat the usual dead horse but I noticed this:

I don't know how buying from a scrapyard is considered "legal". Do they only accept kegs from breweries? The keg could of been "recycled" by someone for a little extra cash. Essentially the scrapyard is buying an illegal keg, since it still belongs to the brewery.

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I do see a distinction between what the OP did and buying a keg from a scrap yard. It very well could be a personal justification since I have purchased scrap yard kegs but what the hell, hear me out.

Seeking out a liquor store of questionable ethics takes a brewery's kegs directly out of the cycle. If you hadn't done that, it would have gone back, filled and around we go.

When you go to a scrap yard and find a keg in the pile it very well could have been a result of two unethical people. The guy who sold it and the guy who authorized the purchase. However, as the homebrewer, your intervention only changes the fate of the keg between melt-down and brewing. You don't have a 3rd option to put that keg back into rotation for the brewery. I say that in a general sense because you'd have a hard time actually returning it to the brewery. If you pay $40 for the scrap value, the brewery won't reimburse you for rescuing it. In a more practical sense, my local scrapyard has required people selling out of service pressure vessels with a visible hole to prove it isn't sitting at 300psi and ready to kill someone. That requirement seems to be enforced only sporadically but a hole in the top of a keg certainly eliminates it from brewery reuse.

I'm sure some will say it's just a bunch of mental gymnastics but I do see a difference.

As for the cornies, I work for pepsi in an area where cornies are still used. yes, we also use bag in the box. but when I asked my plant manager if we had any for me to purchase, he asked what the were for and said that we've had many stolen and that must be where they went. So assuming that one area/bottler/distributor is getting out of cornies its wrong to assume that every cornie you buy is legit. will we get out of them? I'm sure we will but we still have accounts set up for cornies and not bags, so we still need them for them.

I think the big problem in the industry is more than likely, theft of kegs. When people steal a keg and take it to a scrap or sell it, that would be hurting the brewery. By charging a deposit, that gives the seller the opportunity to recover their cost. If a distributor charges me $100 for a keg deposit, you can bet I'll bring that keg back unless I really have a need for one.

Really though it depends on any agreements that you sign when you pay the deposit. Does the agreement state that the keg is the property of XXXXX, and you are renting the equipment? Does it just state that this is a deposit and when you return the equipment you get your money back?
Here's an interesting thread I found by doing a search.

http://www.probrewer.com/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-3480.html

I don't know as I haven't bought a keg of beer from a store in a long time. Maybe someone can chime in on this.

Interesting topic.

Wow.........dident think I would start a debate on Ethics. If the Kegs were values at more than $30, then I would think the deposite would increase to the actual value. The owner of the store who sold them to me said, that is what he is charged for them $30. I never considered it as stealing.

I'm feeling guilty. mabee I'll take them back and continue to scour the scrap yards. Ohh but that also would be unethical also. Ohh what to do.......what to do. I know, I'll go to confession and ask for forgiveness, and mabee the lord will speak to me.

It would be one thing if the kegs were from a small microbrewery trying to make ends meet, but we're talking about Anheuser-Busch. They can certainly afford to spot you a few kegs. It's the least they can do for stifling the creativity of the American beer industry lo these many years.

So I went to my LHBS to buy a keg for fermenting today. I guess their beer distributor got on them for selling empty kegs. They don't do it anymore. I guess I will be scouring scrap yards and Craigslist! Al

make friends with a bar manager @ a busy bar. most of them will help a guy out with 3 kegs for cutting. just pay their deposit. 30$ where i live. their vendors bend over backwards for their buisness. things get overlooked

Phunhog said:

I don't know how buying from a scrapyard is considered "legal". Do they only accept kegs from breweries? The keg could of been "recycled" by someone for a little extra cash. Essentially the scrapyard is buying an illegal keg, since it still belongs to the brewery.

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Scrap yards do not accept "recycled" kegs or are not supposed to. Breweries have been on a campaign to inform scrap yards that these are not to be recycled. That they were probably stolen from the back of a bar.

I think the beer industry should do more to protect themselves if they are worth $130 dollars they should charge that as a deposit. The distributors should also pay that for anyone that is returned.

Bars would not store their kegs "out back" anymore.

Homebrewers might consider other ways to brew 13 gallon batches.

My kegs came from a guy that used to own a bar but no longer did. The distributor would not return his deposit for the kegs and asked him to deliver the kegs to them. I was much more accommodating, apparently the kegs were worth more to me than they were to the distributor.

If AB wanted to keep their kegs in circulation they would make efforts to insure their return or at least be willing to retrieve them.