A friend just called me because a caterer left a bunch of empty sankey kegs behind after an event and he wants to know what do with them.
Will any old liquor store take these things back? The caterer apparently is not returning.
Obviously, they’re usable and should be returned. Just not sure the easiest way to do it.
I figured someone here would know…
I think I’d try the distributor.
Thanks. That’s worth a shot. I’ll tell him to try there, but figuring out who has the distributorship might be difficult.
I have no idea how they carve up the city… Not my problem though.
A neighbor of mine gave me a half barrel keg once that he had forgotten to take back to the store for 8 months (it got stacked behind the garage) and he didn’t want bother with it. The distributor was stamped on the keg. I called them and explained why I had it. They gave me the address to drop it off at. That was one confused warehouse receiving clerk. ;D
Paul
What would the best way to get the deposit back be? Maybe call the distributor and say you are the caterer and want to know how to get your deposit back.
Not really looking to get a deposit back. Just trying to figure out an easy way to get the kegs returned.
Otherwise, they’ll get put out on a dock by the trash and a scavenger will grab them.
It isn’t likely the distributor has the deposit anyway. Returning them would gain you karma points but that’s about it.
Paul
My local bottle shop will take them from me and put them back in the pipeline. He also pays deposits even on kegs he didn’t sell, because he gets the deposit from the distributor anyway so it doesn’t matter to him. The distributor won’t give me the deposit, but they’ll give it to him.
Part of the problem is the distributors don’t care because they have no skin in the game. Our local lost almost $45k in kegs in one year because the distributor did not track them down, or perhaps better said, did not track them at all. For a small brewery that is a kiss of death and they are lucky they got by.
Good on you for trying to return the kegs. If it were me I’d go to my local bottle shop who sells kegged beer and ask if I could leave them with him. They generally will be in contact with all the major distributors.
I would also say bring them back to the liquor store (or friendly bar). They can get it back to the system. Going back to the distributor can be confusing.
Thank you for trying to bring kegs back. If it is local brewery you can contact them directly. They will be more than happy to get their kegs back.
Happy indeed! I found a keg from a small brewery on the coast along the side of the road. I drove over and returned it to them. They were stunned somebody would do that and gave me free food and beer all afternoon.
That depends. A lot of distributors charge the deposit. Sometimes the brewery charges a deposit to the distributor and the distributor charges the deposit to the establishment the keg is sold too. I can tell you lots of horror stories about distro’s “forgetting about kegs”.
Joe - If you want some karma points, call the brewery and tell them what you saw. Let them handle the distro. Guarantee you they want their kegs back.
I reached out to a friend who is neighbors with the guy that owns the local (and most awesome) Belgian beer bar here on the north side. I figure he’ll take them and get them returned, but I haven’t heard back.
The only problem I see is the kegs are sitting down town and someone would need to lug them all the way up here (not really that far, but…). I don’t go down town often, and my poor little GTI won’t hold too much.
As the major suggests let the brewery know and they’ll send someone to pick them up.
Just happend to me today, the local Bud salesman was in looking for the kegs that we had in the cooler doing a count. He told me bud charges the distributer for every missing keg. So they do it for every beer they distribute. No we don’t have bud in our taphouse. Please return every keg.
UPDATE: the distributor is supposed to be picking them up but has not as of yet.
Apparently, the kegs were donated to an event by AB and no one seems to have any record of them at the distributor level. Regardless, I’m sure they have trucks downtown all the time so these should get picked up.
Thanks for the advice.