For those who are thinking about converting a Sanke keg into a kettle

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EarlyAmateurZymurgist

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Ninety-plus percent of the kegs that are being passed around are stolen property (not returning a keg on which a deposit has been made is theft because distributors and retailers do not have the authority to convey ownership of a keg). Keg theft has reached an epidemic level. You can bet that the megas are going to start to prosecute people who have misappropriated their property just as the RIAA went after file sharing site users. Unlike metal scrappers who rapidly dispose of evidence, homebrewers who are in possession of converted kegs have evidence that can be used against them in a court of law.

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/19940411#19940411
 
And much like the RIAA, the breweries do nothing to encourage compliance. A simple step would be a better deposit system. Someone who isn't going to get their deposit back because they lost their receipt or had the keg a few days to long has much more incentive to post it for sale on craigslist rather than return it and lose the money.

Deposits should be paid to the breweries and the brewery should reimburse its distributors for every keg returned with their stamp on it. This would keep a majority of kegs off sites like craigslist.
 
You have completely ignored the post you referenced. The problem you are pointing to is scrap cost and not homebrewers. All that needs to happen is that Budweiser, Miller. need to lobby for $150 deposit if they are worried about cost.
 
Don't kid yourself; amateur brewers are a significant part of the problem. I usually see WTB ads from home brewers in my local area who are looking to purchase one or more "good" or "like new" condition kegs on Craig's List every week. I also see ads from sellers who are looking to sell to amateur brewers. Commercial brewers are reticent to bring the issue to light because amateur brewers are beer drinkers. Keggles are far more popular today than they were two decades ago when I first took up the hobby, and far too many home brewers believe that the deposit they place on a keg entitles them to keep it. A keg deposit is much like the deposit that one has to put down on a rental property or a rental car. Deposits do not convey ownership. They are merely behavioral incentives.

Keg deposits are a throwback to the days when America was a much more moral society. It is an outdated rental system that was developed as part of the three-tier beer distribution legislation that was put into place after the end of prohibition. Keg deposit prices are generally locally controlled; therefore, breweries have little to no control over deposit prices.

You can bet that AB-Inbev and SAB Miller have lobbyists at work on Capitol Hill addressing this problem. While the scrappers may be the major violators, the megas are going to after the little fish first after they receive the green light from Congress. Little fish are easy to prosecute because most cannot afford to retain legal counsel.

With that said, there are legal ways to obtain kegs. Sabco clearly obtains their used kegs legally from breweries. If I were buying a keg from an individual that I planned to convert into a kettle, I would ask for a copy of the receipt from the brewery that owned it or a brewery authorized scrapper.
 
What an intersting topic. First time I've seen it on this forum. Well done! :mug:
 
There is a super simple solution to the problem, preauthorize a credit card for $150 dollars. If its not returned within 30 days charge the card. How hard is that? It's their property they can do that if they want to.... Right?
 
I travelled to another state when NY tried that. I am hard pressed to drink a sanke in 30 days.
 
Up until a few years ago, keg deposit was only 15 bucks in New Jersey. Now it is $30 for a half keg and $50 for a sixtel, seems odd?

I think it would kill sales to raise the deposit to the keg's value, so I guess they are just passing the loss off in the price of the beer.

Keg loss totaling $300 million is a staggering statistic, however when you consider the US beer market is $99 billion, yea that's billion with a "B".
 
EarlyAmateurZymurgist let me ask you this, why do you care. Are you a crime stopper for crimes that could happen? I feel like the renta cop in a shopping mall thinks he's on the SWAT team. Are you following a black teen in your car?
 
mikescooling said:
EarlyAmateurZymurgist let me ask you this, why do you care. Are you a crime stopper for crimes that could happen? I feel like the renta cop in a shopping mall thinks he's on the SWAT team. Are you following a black teen in your car?
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Well done. I was amazed this thread hadn't spiraled out of control, but that should do the trick. :D
 
I acquired my keg from some other guy that had attempted to cut out the valve (not sure why) said he got it at a scrap yard (who knows what really happened). The body was destroyed, looked like he tried a hole saw. Anyway, I finished the cut job as it was already useless to a brewery.

Those were days before I knew the truth about kegs. Now I just buy brand new ones and cut them up.
 
I only know a few brewers who are using kegs, and all of them were obtained legally.
 
sivispacemparabe11um said:
There is a super simple solution to the problem, preauthorize a credit card for $150 dollars. If its not returned within 30 days charge the card. How hard is that? It's their property they can do that if they want to.... Right?
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It is illegal for breweries to have any kind of direct financial relationship with customers in most states; therefore, keg rental contracts between breweries and customers are illegal. Beer has to go through the three-tier distribution system that was put into place after prohibition. Kegs deposits work on a pass-through basis, brewers charge distributors, distributors charge retailers, and retailers charge customers. The only party that ever owns the keg is the brewery. All of the other parties in the transaction are renters. Keg deposits are set at the state and/or local level.

Anyone who wants to know more about how the three-tier distribution system works should watch a movie entitled "The Beer Wars." Anat Baron definitely puts an anti-mega spin on the issue, but anyone who sees the movie will gain a healthy respect for micros such as Sierra Nevada that have been able to achieve national distribution without getting into bed with AB Inbev or SAB Miller.
 
Most people don't like being lectured to....or acused of anything.....not the best way to make friends in life.......Just Say'in.
 
If I paid the keg deposit, then it's my choice to cut it up into scrap rather than return the keg and get my $30 back. No amount of nanny nagging from internet busybodies is going to change that.
 
dwarven_stout said:
If I paid the keg deposit, then it's my choice to cut it up into scrap rather than return the keg and get my $30 back. No amount of nanny nagging from internet busybodies is going to change that.
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You son, are a sinner, you will burn in the fires of hell for you actions, go and sin no more!:rockin:
 
Just some additional thought on this never ending conversation...

I live in a bottle deposit state where every bottle I buy has a $0.10 deposit on it. If I don't return the bottle, I don't get my money back. From what I've read, about 30% of bottles are not returned and the state pockets millions each year as a result.

Why are kegs not treated similarly? People usually return bottles as the deposit exceeds the resale / scrap / usability of the bottle. Why does it seem the state handles bottle deposits but the breweries / distributors handle keg deposits?

No one ever seems to be up in arms about a homebrewer bottling his beer in a commercial brewery's bottles that he obtained for the price of a deposit.
 
jpalarchio said:
No one ever seems to be up in arms about a homebrewer bottling his beer in a commercial brewery's bottles that he obtained for the price of a deposit.
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They only get up in arms because of the desparity in actual replacement cost. Which is something that breweries have to push. Of course keg manufacturers are probably on the otherside of the issue.

Does it really matter what the deposit cost of a keg is? NO. You get your money back upon return of the keg but some retailers decided that they are going to only allow a 2 week (or whatever) window to return it otherwise, no deposit refund for you.

Honestly, the retailers are the ones stealing from the breweries. This asinine concept that you will kill an entire keg in two weeks is stupid and only shows that they are incompetent or lazy with their accounting systems.

Maybe breweries should push legislation to outlaw this practice. Worked in many states with gift card fees/expiration dates a few years ago.

Retailers and distributors are probably both pushing to keep deposits low as well.

Furthermore, I would venture to say that most of those $300m in kegs are an end table or something else. Do some homebrewers have illegal converted kegs? Yes. I would say that most of them did it before they knew about the issue with it. Or acquired it from someone else without even giving thought to it or without knowledge of the issue.

Most of us would have no problem laying down a credit card number to secure the keg. However "John Q. Bud Light is the Best Beer Ever", will probably balk at "paying" more in deposits than the actual contents. Is not returning a 5 gallon water bottle the same? The deposit in my area is only $5, they surely cost more than that. How about glass milk bottles, bet they cost more than $1 deposit.

Now for the love of beer can we let this go? It is a problem, threads like this wont fix it. I am sure I am not the only one besides admin and moderators that is tired of seeing this issue.
 
sivispacemparabe11um said:
There is a super simple solution to the problem, preauthorize a credit card for $150 dollars. If its not returned within 30 days charge the card. How hard is that? It's their property they can do that if they want to.... Right?
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Do the people buying kegs of BMC even have credit cards?

I remember my days of buying kegs of MGD and I didn't have a credit card to speak of. Wouldn't requiring someone to have a credit card to get a keg (remember a large part of BMC's sales are 18 - 25 year olds) or to come up with $150 for a $80 keg of beer cut into their sales? I imagine it's factored into the cost of business.

Me? I wouldn't do it because I don't think it's right. But I'm not too worried that it happens.

Steal from a micro or nano? That's grounds for dismissal.
 
If I pay deposits on glass bottles and cans, should I be keeping them too, or is that different?
 
EarlyAmateurZymurgist said:
Keg deposits are a throwback to the days when America was a much more moral society.
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You're hilarious.

This isn't a real problem, and if it was it wouldn't be mine or yours. It isn't going to affect people who aren't habitually stealing kegs. What punishment method are you envisioning? A roaming Keg Patrol, traveling from town to town with binoculars, intent on rounding up the homebrewers? Perhaps you imagine that the neighborhood watch will be repurposed in this sinister direction. I don't know.

The comparison between the RIAA and breweries is interesting, but mostly because it's such a bad simile. The RIAA's primarily tackling copying in a digital medium, where the connections and file contents are digital, logged at both ends, and verifiable... and what they are doing is still considered to be impossible, on a technical level, even though digital communication makes tracking people easy. In contrast, kegs are physical and pretty hard to trace. Only some of them have serial numbers, and with those that do there's no way for the average citizen to verify legal status. It's not always possible to even return a keg for your deposit... I know I can't get through a keg in 30 days. Can you?

Unlike the RIAA, the breweries have been in the business of selling kegs for close to 70 years. They know how to make money selling kegs... if they didn't, they wouldn't sell kegged beer to private citizens. And in an age of awesome futuristic plastics, if it bothered them so much, they could start cranking out one-use kegs for a couple bucks apiece and only sell metal units to the bars.

While (depending on the deposit involved) it's probably immoral to walk with a keg, it's not moral to hold onto the deposit and demand the keg back, either. The breweries have tools at their disposal to combat theft: bigger deposits, cheaper vessels, better deposit terms. The fact that it still works the way it does is a strong indicator that this is economically acceptable to the majority of breweries.
 
The thing to remember here is that the scrappers ditch their evidence making them hard to prosecute. Anytime you post a picture of your brewery online, it's evidence against you. I personally know someone who got harassed by a brewery because they saw their keg on Facebook. Unless you have a receipt for your keg, you can be accused of possessing stolen property and be hauled into court. Simply taking a damaged keg from someone who already cut it up does not relieve you of responsibility.
 
mpcluever said:
The thing to remember here is that the scrappers ditch their evidence making them hard to prosecute. Anytime you post a picture of your brewery online, it's evidence against you. I personally know someone who got harassed by a brewery because they saw their keg on Facebook. Unless you have a receipt for your keg, you can be accused of possessing stolen property and be hauled into court. Simply taking a damaged keg from someone who already cut it up does not relieve you of responsibility.
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The burden of proof is on the accuser, at least in the US legal system. Unless the brewery can prove that the specific keg is stolen, it's their problem - this stratifies breweries between those which have never sold kegs, and those who have.

Just because a brewery behaves badly doesn't mean they're right.

Additionally, in the case where a brewery sells a keg to a scrapper, who sells the keg to a customer instead of destroying it, the customer is not in possession of stolen property. The scrapper may have breached a contract, which is a legal problem for the scrapper and probably not the customer... except when the brewery contracted the scrapper to scrap the keg and then sold the scrap, in which case the keg was sold before the contract was fulfilled and then it does belong to the brewery. Phew.

(I am not a lawyer. Please don't construe this as legal advice. :mug:)
 
Kerin said:
While (depending on the deposit involved) it's probably immoral to walk with a keg, it's not moral to hold onto the deposit and demand the keg back, either. The breweries have tools at their disposal to combat theft: bigger deposits, cheaper vessels, better deposit terms. The fact that it still works the way it does is a strong indicator that this is economically acceptable to the majority
of breweries.
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It is not moral, nor is it legal to hold onto a keg deposit when a keg is returned in most jurisdictions. Many smaller breweries will pay a finder's fee for returned kegs (www.kegreturn.com), no questions asked.

Keg deposit prices are set at the local level by state, county, and municipal governments. It's part of the three-tier beer distribution legislation that was put into place after prohibition.
 
http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=c472d8fa-0a4a-4994-bb2f-86d092b74b9c

"Kegs are a touchy subject throughout the beer industry regardless of the size of the brewery sending them out. When kegs leave a brewery's loading dock, they do so as property of a brewery that's basically on loan to the folks taking them. The $20-or-so deposit a buyer puts down on the keg isn't its official value -- which can reach beyond $120 for an empty half-barrel -- but a means of making sure those kegs are returned.


In Anheuser-Busch's case, those kegs have metal stamping on them that clearly marks them as property of Anheuser-Busch InBev and instructs those in possession of them to send them back home through proper channels as quickly as possible. Basically, if a frat decides to eat $20 to give themselves a piece of furniture for a semester or a group of overnight campers doesn't feel up to hauling a keg out of a canyon with them early in the morning, that deposit will go to whoever steps up and returns it.


Some kegs get lost along the way. They're sold for scrap at $25 to $35 more than their deposit price or have their stamping hammered out or plated over to be sold in the secondary market. With A-B claiming that it doesn't sell kegs, as it did in the Calfkiller case, the brewery is free to come collect any keg that still has a stamp on it and is reported back to an A-B distributor. Though a small brewer may have bought the old kegs in good faith, they basically just received stolen property."
 
Sounds like the Breweries should take up this issue with distributors or local laws not homebrewers or consumers.
 
Bennywisest said:
Sounds like the Breweries should take up this issue with distributors or local laws not homebrewers or consumers.
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Exactly this. The presence of a ridiculous law affecting breweries is unfortunate for them, but it's their problem and they have much more power to lobby for change than we give them credit for. If the keg return problem represents a problem for their business model (and I'm on record already saying that I don't think it is, which I definitely won't get flamed for :fro:) then the people they need to take it up with is the people they have an agreement with in the first place... the distributors.

Again, there's nothing stopping them from churning out cheap disposable kegs. Something like the reusable 5-gal water carriers could be made at around the cost of a deposit, and then the only people they'd have to argue with would be Greenpeace. ;)

If keg theft made selling beer to us so unprofitable, you can bet they wouldn't. There may be laws against raising the deposit right now, but there aren't laws saying they have to sell to us! :mug:
 
EarlyAmateurZymurgist said:
http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=c472d8fa-0a4a-4994-bb2f-86d092b74b9c

"Kegs are a touchy subject throughout the beer industry regardless of the size of the brewery sending them out. When kegs leave a brewery's loading dock, they do so as property of a brewery that's basically on loan to the folks taking them. The $20-or-so deposit a buyer puts down on the keg isn't its official value -- which can reach beyond $120 for an empty half-barrel -- but a means of making sure those kegs are returned.


In Anheuser-Busch's case, those kegs have metal stamping on them that clearly marks them as property of Anheuser-Busch InBev and instructs those in possession of them to send them back home through proper channels as quickly as possible. Basically, if a frat decides to eat $20 to give themselves a piece of furniture for a semester or a group of overnight campers doesn't feel up to hauling a keg out of a canyon with them early in the morning, that deposit will go to whoever steps up and returns it.


Some kegs get lost along the way. They're sold for scrap at $25 to $35 more than their deposit price or have their stamping hammered out or plated over to be sold in the secondary market. With A-B claiming that it doesn't sell kegs, as it did in the Calfkiller case, the brewery is free to come collect any keg that still has a stamp on it and is reported back to an A-B distributor. Though a small brewer may have bought the old kegs in good faith, they basically just received stolen property."
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That article said that Calfkiller ended up keeping their kegs. I am curious if there are more details on that case. If they were bought from unclaimed property auctions proper notification must have been made to the owners (A B) .In most states if the property owner is notified and the property is not claimed within a specified amount of time, they forfeit right of ownership. Even though there is a ”property of” stamp on the keg they no longer own it. It is always wise to keep documentation of items purchased through this avenue.
 
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