saluki_brewer
Well-Known Member
Well I just hope that your $50 keg of DFH90 is worth spending eternity being scorched by white-hot flames of infinite sadness.
DFH Score!
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No mention of criminality other than MSNC choosing to use the word "theft", and no mention of NY in the entire article, so it doesn't refute anything I said.
mixedbrewer
Well-Known Member
It hurts beer companies... and hurting beer is a crime in itself.
No disagreement there, you should have made that your point all along. I was just stating the legal facts of the matter. Personally, I wouldn't do it, but I laugh when its mentioned on this forum and everyone refers to it as illegal.
mixedbrewer
Well-Known Member
I never once mentioned illegal.. I was comparing it to the concept of wrecking an apartment just because you put the deposit down.
TheBrewinator
Well-Known Member
What about kegs that are so old the brewery and distributor no longer exist? Who does the keg fall on then if you were to find one of those collecting dust in an old barn? Does it belong to the ghost of breweries past? Does it belong to the person who paid the deposit on it and never returned it? Should it be stricken from existence like the brewery?
You all Compliance Officers?
Geesh, remind me never to share any of my good stories with you guys after I've had a few. I would hate to hear what you thought about me if you are on your soapbox calling this kid a thief if he doesn't return a keg after leaving a deposit on a vessel that contained a $300 concoction of water and ethanol.
Geesh, remind me never to share any of my good stories with you guys after I've had a few. I would hate to hear what you thought about me if you are on your soapbox calling this kid a thief if he doesn't return a keg after leaving a deposit on a vessel that contained a $300 concoction of water and ethanol.
thisgoestoeleven
Well-Known Member
My thoughts on this whole thread can be summed up thusly:
BrewFrisco
Well-Known Member
rofl!!!
BrewFrisco
Well-Known Member
Update: Transferred keg to my corny keg - filled it completely...even had to dump about a gallon of 90 onto my driveway (that is after filling a large cup and a growler + corny)!!! I had plans for my corny...now I am in search for another one before Supoerbowl weekend...
Option A - Kill 5 gallons of DF90 by next Friday
Option B - Get another corny keg
Option A - Kill 5 gallons of DF90 by next Friday
Option B - Get another corny keg
BoxofRain
Well-Known Member
There has to be someone in texas who will take that 5 gallons off your hands. Come on people!
doctorRobert
Well-Known Member
mixedbrewer said:
Not in the eyes of the law. Real estate has its own laws. That's a fact, compare it to a rented car instead. A deposit for a rental car doesn't mean you can forfeit it and keep it.
It really all depends on how the contract is worded for the keg. If the contract states that the keg is fully owned by X, and must be returned by X, than its legally X's, regardless of any deposit. If it has language regarding non-compliance, and forfeiting the deposit, then that'll be your answer depending on what was written.
Debate this all you want, and all the state laws you want, but its a pissing contest as nobody here even knows what's in the damn contract. End of story.
Congrats to the OP.
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whiskey_pickle
Well-Known Member
I am not going to read all of these posts again, but I think someone mentioned this..... My local grocery store sells BMC kegs and asks for a $35 deposit. After 4 months I take the keg back to the grocery store and I am told that the deposit is only good for 90 days and I can't get my deposit back. Next day I go to the distributor and ask if I can return the "empty" and get my deposit back and get asked "do you have a receipt?".....well, NO i don't have my receipt is my answer, to which I get the answer of " we will be glad to take back the keg, but the deposit has to be taken up with the "seller" of said keg.... By this time I don't give a shat, I will add this to my
In GA there is not only a time limit, but the keg must have the original ID number sticker from the liquor store on it. After floating in ice water overnight the sticker is gone. Should I hand the keg over and be out $50 or sell it on CL to get my money back?
doctorRobert
Well-Known Member
whiskey_pickle said:
You would think they'd buy any keg back if they're so expensive, even if you didn't get it from them
If the breweries cared about their kegs half as much as some of the people on this forum did they would implement a better system to make sure they got them all back. Charging more would be one easy and effective method. One of my local distributors said it's not a theft in our state (Wisconsin). The fact is, if the breweries were worried about mass keg loss due to homebrewers they would confront the issue. They obviously don't care. I sign no written contract with the brewery so for them to claim it's their property is bogus. Not all states consider verbal contracts legally binding, and even if your in one of those states.. No such contract was made. Breweries could force distributors to pay for missing kegs, which would leave it up to distributors to have a better system in place for assuring kegs are returned. They dont. Because they dont care; or are lazy. Take your pick. If walmart sold kegs then maybe I'd jump on the moral bandwagon. But until I see breweries caring about kegs, I'll keep their attitude= who cares. Btw kegs bought by individuals is a small pittance compared to the sales/ profits of kegs sold to bars/ restaurants. Probably why they don't care. Businesses return their kegs. They probably dont expect kegs back from people who buy them for personal parties. Keg deposit where i live is only 12 $ for keystone kegs. Cheap nasty beer though, doubt I could empty one without throwing a party with lots of young college kids. So to the OP I say: nice find indeed.
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
You're 100% wrong. It's not a severe enough crime that they're likely to send people out investigating it, but stealing a keg for the deposit is definitely a crime in New York.
If you don't believe me, walk down to the station and tell them that you've kept a keg and hacked it up with only the deposit as security. You'll easily get the answer then.
if you're unwilling to do that, that's a pretty solid sign that you know you're committing a crime--one that you can probably get away with flying under the radar, but a crime nonetheless.
If the damage to the apartment exceeds your deposit, you are legally responsible for the difference. Taking the keg and forfeiting the deposit is still theft of the difference in value.
The fact of the matter is, most breweries would LOVE to charge the full value of the keg as a deposit, and let you decide whether or not to return it. The only reason they charge significantly less is because it is not economically viable to do so... they simply wouldn't be able to sell many kegs if they charged way more for the deposit than the price of the beer itself. Hell, kegs can be worth around three times the deposit IN SCRAP in some places. Paying the deposit does not make it your property, and at no point does it actually become your property. It remains the property of the brewery at all times, until they either sell it or forfeit ownership of it.
The fact of the matter is, most breweries would LOVE to charge the full value of the keg as a deposit, and let you decide whether or not to return it. The only reason they charge significantly less is because it is not economically viable to do so... they simply wouldn't be able to sell many kegs if they charged way more for the deposit than the price of the beer itself. Hell, kegs can be worth around three times the deposit IN SCRAP in some places. Paying the deposit does not make it your property, and at no point does it actually become your property. It remains the property of the brewery at all times, until they either sell it or forfeit ownership of it.
Dude I am in Texas with an empty 1/2bbl of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale that I brought with me from AZ (I kept it cold the entire way). I will trade you straight up for your DFH keg. I will make sure it gets returned to Sam as I have ZERO interest in converting to a keggle. Lemme know!
emjay said:
The difference between your apartment deposit and your keg deposit is this: you sign a contract when you rent an apartment. A consumer purchasing a keg of beer signs no contracts whatsoever with the brewery. At least not where I live and buy mine. Not only are no contracts signed with the brewery, none were signed with the distributor. It's true it may not be feasible for breweries to charge full price for kegs, but that doesn't stop them from being able to hold the distributors responsible for collecting them. They get the majority of their kegs back from businesses anyways, so again, they dont care about a few missing ones from individual consumers. Hence your paying a deposit on the keg; not renting the keg. That's the major difference. Rent means you have to return it. Deposit is in case you don't. Obviously they make more money on losing a few kegs than they would charging a full price deposit fee/ a flat out rental fee. If they charged a rental fee that you didn't get back, and required a cc to hold the rental for their insurance, they'd get all their kegs back I'm sure. Instead of being moral police on an internet forum, send letters to all your local breweries informing them of their bad business decisions and how they can ensure all kegs to be returned.. Oh wait.. You really dont care? That's what I thought...
eh we all know its wrong on some level. whether or not we take the high road is another story.
I too like my cake and like to eat it too.
a small brewery like DFH I would not use for a keggle. but BMC you bet you @$S I would.
-=Jason=-
I too like my cake and like to eat it too.
a small brewery like DFH I would not use for a keggle. but BMC you bet you @$S I would.
-=Jason=-
Butain said:
It's not a bad business decision, it's a necessary evil they have to put up with. People also steal kegs from where businesses might store them, but just because most kegs are returned doesn't make it okay to steal the odd one any more than shoplifting is okay because most people pay for their items.
As far as a contract goes, that holds absolutely no water because it's a criminal matter, not a civil one.
Amd with regards to the "moral police" comment, I'm not surprised that you're unable to tell the difference between a legal viewpoint and a moral one. Ultimately I don't care, you're absolutely right about SOMETHING at least, but if people need to deceive themselves about the legality to help themselves sleep at night, that's totally unrealistic and I don't mind wasting some free time pointing that out.
I break the law pretty much on a daily basis (I'm not talking about some stupid misdemeanor either), and I don't let my own moral code be dictated by legislators, judges, or anyone other than me, but at least I can accept the fact that it IS considered illegal and don't have to lie to myself to feel okay about it. If somebody steals a keg knowing fully that they ARE stealing, that's good for them and it has nothing to do with anything I've argued.
Flomaster said:
I somewhat agree. Would I go out and buy a keg for the sole purpose of keeping the keg? Probably not. Would I buy one from a buddy that wasnt planning on or couldn't return it? Yes. Especially if it had good beer still left in it.
The fact that breweries rely on the honor system for kegs being returned shows that they don't care if a few go missing. Ownership or not, you can't claim ownership of something you can't keep tabs on and purposely lend it out to many people whom you don't know without keeping proper records.
If I borrowed you my TV and said you could lend it out to as many people as you want to, and gave no definate time that it had to be returned...
So I find out who has it two years later. It's in some guys garage, full of stickers, a cracked screen, broken antenna. Is it still my TV? Can i call the cops and report it stolen? Pretty sure the answer is no. Just because everybody knows it was my tv at some point doesn't prove ownership.
Even if it had my name etched all over it, no cop would arrest said person for having it in their possession. Especially after explaining to the cop how it left my possession in the first place. Would the cop make him give it back? Who knows, maybe. Would he get in trouble? Definitely not. Why? Because there was no contract given for terms of use. Everything today requires contracts when it comes to borrowing/lending items if you expect to retain ownership of an item indefinitely in the condition you issued them out at.
For how much money big breweries make, they could afford to develop a better system of keeping track of their keg inventory. I actually find it quite puzzling as to why they don't.
Look on the bright side guys, we keeping keg manufacturers in business, one Keg at a time. Without them, we'd have no kegs for beer period!
My only issue with you statement emjay is this: there IS a difference between entering somebody elses property and removing items without permission. Yes that is theft.
If a business says: I'll sell you this beer for 100 bucks and charge you a DEPOSIT of 20 bucks for the keg in case you don't return it.
To me, that's not stealing. That just means I don't get my deposit back. Now if they said it was a rental, and took down my personal information than you would be correct. So from a legal standpoint you are completely wrong. It is not illegal to keep a keg. There are no legal agreements made at keg/beer purchase.
Maybe you live somewhere that does. I know I don't.
I've had in depth discussions with the owner of one of my local beer distributors. He has a pretty large operation. He said distributors and breweries are fine with people thinking it's illegal, even though it's really not. You were given the keg with no real defined terms, only that you pay a deposit to keep them.
Again, maybe the places you get your kegs from define your agreement more. I don't know. But I do know that they don't here where i live.
If a business says: I'll sell you this beer for 100 bucks and charge you a DEPOSIT of 20 bucks for the keg in case you don't return it.
To me, that's not stealing. That just means I don't get my deposit back. Now if they said it was a rental, and took down my personal information than you would be correct. So from a legal standpoint you are completely wrong. It is not illegal to keep a keg. There are no legal agreements made at keg/beer purchase.
Maybe you live somewhere that does. I know I don't.
I've had in depth discussions with the owner of one of my local beer distributors. He has a pretty large operation. He said distributors and breweries are fine with people thinking it's illegal, even though it's really not. You were given the keg with no real defined terms, only that you pay a deposit to keep them.
Again, maybe the places you get your kegs from define your agreement more. I don't know. But I do know that they don't here where i live.
HItransplant
Well-Known Member
you people need a hobby 
robtotten
Well-Known Member
On Brewmasters, they showed Sam's first brew rig. It was a keggle system.
riverfrontbrewer
Well-Known Member
But it was a Sabco system........i.e. new kegs
robtotten said:
Yep I saw that. He used it when he was 24 for his Punkin Ale which was his 4th batch ever, so I'm guessing he had the setup from the start. It's not impossible, but people stealing kegs generally have to do it over a bit of time. I see no reason not to give people the benefit of the doubt (the OP brags about stealing so that's a different matter - he just doesn't acknowledge that it's even illegal), and the fact that he probably started off with that setup makes it even more likely, as I see it, that he acquired them in a different manner.
Even if he did steal them, a newbie like him at the time probably wouldn't know better, especially since it's likely that he, like most people, didn't even have Internet access back then.
And if he did knowingly steal them, I'm happy he did, because while there may be lots if beer better than DFH's catalog, it's undeniable that craft brewing would not be quite the same today without Sam pushing the boundaries of beer, challenging the ideas of what beer is supposed to be, and inspiring others to do the same.
Now, people are predictable enough that I know I'm going to be accused of being contradictory or hypocritical, so I'm going to save them some time and address this idiotic idea immediately.
It's not hypocritical because I don't have much of a moral problem with it to begin with, as some people seem to think, and frankly I'm no saint myself. The only real issue I'd have with it is borne of selfishness - I want the breweries I like to be rewarded for it as much as possible, and especially since the proportion of a craft brewery's keg sales relative to overall sales can be OVER 500% higher than BMC breweries, it hurts them a lot more.
But even the craft breweries I don't like, there may be some exceptions but I wouldn't really care in these cases. What this means though is that I'd never be able to put together a keggle system by buying beer in kegs and stealing them, because I'm only going to buy beer I like, so I wouldn't allow myself to steal them. So I'd have to find a different way of acquiring them.
This largely only applies to my own choices though. I can't expect everyone to care about the success of the same breweries I do, nor can I expect people to set the same arbitrary boundaries that I have. My problem is with the absurdity of lying to oneself about the legality in order to justify one's actions, especially when they only have themselves to convince and answer to. Or maybe the law as well, but realistically it's not something that is often enforced and it's also quite difficult to enforce with the systems currently in place.
Butain said:
A deposit NEVER implies a transfer of ownership in any context.
That being said, when I made the comparison to shoplifting, I wasn't trying to draw a perfect analogy, so the issue you have with it is wholly irrelevant and you're arguing a point I didn't actually make. I was merely using the comparison to demonstrate the fact that just because something is NOT stolen the vast majority of the time, it doesn't make it any more right to steal on the odd occasion. And in this manner, the analogy holds. But "entering somebody else's property" has NOTHING to do with the illegality of shoplifting/theft anyways. It's just as illegal to shoplift in markets or during festivals held on public property, and even on YOUR OWN property, it's JUST as illegal to take and keep something that's not yours, whether it's somebody else's car parked in your garage, or even an earring that might have fallen out and gotten lost. It's also technically theft if a cashier hands you too much change and you keep it, although mens rea (guilty mind) is nearly impossible to establish in such an instance.
Any time somebody on a forum says they "know somebody" with such deep involvement in and knowledge of a certain industry, or sometimes even refer to themselves, without any actual evidence beyond that hearsay, I take it with a massive grain of salt. Not only because this person could be incorrect, but largely because this is so often a flat-out lie in Internet debates that is waaay too often used as a cheap tactic to win an argument without actually making a single argument of substance, and nearly impossible to very in the vast majority of cases. You could be entirely honest for all I know, and your jurisdiction a genuine exception, but the fact of the matter is that I don't know, and assuming you half have a brain, you should be fully aware that I CAN'T know. But it certainly doesn't help my confidence in this assertion when your only other point is admittedly opinion ("to me this is not stealing"), something that there is absolutely no reason to to be said by somebody who claims to be 100% certain that they know the actual facts of law on the matter. Apologies if you're being completely honest (which unfortunately you'd claim either way), but I'd be believing some pretty crazy things if I accepted at face value every such claim.
sudndeth
Well-Known Member
I pay a 5 cent deposit on my Coke cans....
smizak
Well-Known Member
Me too, on my beer bottles. And I have like a thousand of them that I took all the labels off and reused them. I'm expecting the SWAT team any minute...
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
Lots of brewers have legal keggles. Places sell off used kegs from time to time. They sell damaged kegs (often fine for keggle conversion). You can buy new kegs.
UHHH...
I'm the guy at the "station" who reads every single report (I mentioned this previously) to ensure that it is properly classified as a crime. I actually get paid to make sure that crimes are properly classified. To sum it up, I either know every criminal law, or I have books to look it up at my fingertips.
So guess what?
You're 100% wrong.
EDIT: Everything I am saying applies only in the State of New York, as I have been saying all along. The person I am quoting lives in VA, and should be smarter than to tell someone in another state that they are 100% wrong about laws in their state...
I'm from ny too, you know the crap with the keg identification they do now, after a certain amount of time they forfeit your money for deposit and you can't return the keg. They have your name and address , why doesn't anyone ever investigate these "stolen" kegs. How are they stolen if they are unwilling to take it back?
BaldManBrew
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well this got OT
JRems said:
Because, it is not a crime. If it was, breweries and distributors would take action. They don't, because the way they give out the kegs at sale doesn't give them a legal leg to stand on. I said this before.
Can say what you want, you will not get arrested for keeping a keg you paid a deposit on. That's the whole point of there being a deposit. The fact that they charged a deposit nulls any legal action a brewery had on claiming the keg as their property, if the keg isn't returned. If they don't set the deposit high enough, that is their fault not mine. I'd happily pay the full deposit amount of the cost of the keg.
The distributors in my area explicitly says: you don't bring the keg back, we keep your deposit, and the keg becomes yours. Don't take my word for it if you don't want to. Call any of your local distributors and see what they say. I've already done it in my area and they all say the same thing. You don't bring it back in x amount of time we keep the deposit and you keep the keg.
If that is incorrect it is up to the breweries to make sure the distributors they do business with are handling sales properly to ensure all kegs are returned, regardless of the deposit being kept or not. The distributors improper sales methods does not make the consumers a thief. If breweries don't like how their kegs are being given away at their low deposit cost, they have two options. Raise deposit cost, or start renting the kegs to the distributors, and charging them accordingly for lost kegs.
I'm not saying I'm right about this fact everywhere. I'm just relaying my experience with the distributors in my area when I've contacted them in attempting to acquire one legally. They all flat out told me: it might take a while for them to locate an empty one they can sell me for cheaps, or I can pay more for a full keg/deposit and just keep it.
Obviously this is all my opinion. I feel very little remorse for any brewery no matter how big or small that refuses to implement proper measures to make sure their business partners are doing their jobs properly, and holding them accountable for their actions.
Harder for smaller breweries to negotiate terms for large distributors I bet. If you want them to carry your product, your at their mercy. If you don't like it you don't do business with them and your business hurts. That's part of running a business. I'm also pretty sure the time frame from returning a keg is there for a reason. Maybe they report it as an operating loss on their taxes.
Anyways I didn't mean to hijack this thread or rant as much as i have. I almost always read more than post. I usually read these types of posts and laugh. Oh well, guess it was my turn.
- Jared
SumnerH
Well-Known Member
I know that you're in New York, that's why I responded; it is definitely criminal--it's charged as 155.05.2(d), Larceny by False Promise.
It's penalized as Petit Larceny, which is a class A misdemeanor (punishable by up to 1 year in prison, though as a non-violent offense the likely sentence is much lower).
Yelling back and forth isn't going to resolve things; like I said, feel free to go to the local police station or consult a lawyer if you want a real answer.
