8-10 years ago, before I knew what I know now about kegs and such, I purchased a used home brewery system that included 3 keggles. I used it for many years, and as I learned these were probably stolen kegs (I really have no clue) I began feeling bad about using them. But of course, not bad enough to stop.
3 years ago I did stop using them, but only because we got some bigger boilermakers from Blichmann. Those three keggles have been in storage ever since. The thing is, now what do I do with them? I have no clue if they were purchased legitimately, but I rather doubt it. The system was 5 years old when I bought it. So it’s been close to 20 years. I’d like to sell them, but somehow that doesn’t seem right to me. but then, I don’t want to store them for all eternity either.
At this point you are better off selling them other wise to the scrap yard they go and that would be a bigger waste. Nothing you can do at this point because they cant be re-used as kegs anyway.
I have a similar story, in the 1980s I was unaware that the deposit left on a keg didn’t cover the replacement. I “purchased” my keg for the cost of a deposit from a liquor store. I have been using my keggle since.
While I have some guilt now, it still doesn’t seem appropriate to send a check to Coors now for my crime in the 80s.
For a time, I would assuage my guilt by buying their products from time to time, but after I became a shareholder, that seemed self serving.
I’d agree sell your keggles, keep 'em in circulation to help prevent others from being stolen. If that’s not enough, donate the proceeds to orphans in Haiti (as a shareholder in a brewery, that works for me).
I went through the same issue. I went to the local AB distributor and offered to pay for the kegs. They basically laughed at me and said there was no way to do that.
I have 3 kegs that were bought converted, one Sabco and 2 picos. Over the years I have noticed that all of these had some defects that were repaired so that they were usable as a kettle, but not as a pressure vessel.
These defects are from what would have been a small hole, and a medium, and then a longer gouge in the sides, probably from being dropped. Looking closely you can see where they were welded and then ground down. The last one I noticed a few months ago, after a decade plus of use.
Edit - due to the nature of these and being purchased, no problem using them.
You might be able to donate them to a local LHBS or fledgling club to teach the basics. You will likely spend more time trying to locate one of these, but it would probably zero the balance on your conscience.
Kudos to micsager for being sensitive to the issue of keg ethics. The Brewers Association estimates that lost and stolen kegs cost craft brewers between $15 million and $20 million annually.
A deposit paid on a keg does not constitute ownership. Brewers rarely sell kegs. When you see a keg for sale on EBay or Craig’s List, chances are the seller does not have clear title.
Many states have laws prohibiting the scrapping of kegs. Others require clear title presented by the owner named on the keg. The California legislature has taken the extra step to make it illegal for any person to obliterate, mutilate or mark out the manufacturers name on a metal keg without the written consent of the manufacturer, providing a template for similar legislative action in other states.
Safety is also an issue. The Brewers Association has documented injuries to both brewers and distributors that have occurred because of “tampering”. A keg valve should never be removed from a keg without the proper tools and training. Whenever a keg valve is removed, the only safe way to reinstall the valve is to use a new lock ring. Several severe injuries have recently been attributed to “keg tampering” by untrained individuals using tools not designed for purpose.
www.Kegreturn.com is a resource that facilitates the return of kegs to your favorite craft brewer. You can learn more about the problem of keg losses as well as the ins and outs of keg etiquette.
As a practical view point, at least in Washington State, if you paid a deposit your fail to return is a civil issue. If you walk up behind a brewery and grab an empty, that’s theft
I bought a couple of kegs off a liquor store years ago… yea, probably ‘stolen’. I don’t feel guilty about it, they were a bit dented up and from budwieser. I didn’t hurt any craft brewery in the process. I don’t know why there always has to be ethics around buying used kegs… there is so much illegal stuff going on everyday, much much worse than this and we want to accept the guilt of buying a possibly ‘stolen’ keg… there are bigger threats out there to worry about.
If it says Budweiser I wouldn’t give a flying eff. They have so much power and lobbyist money that if it actually affected them, they’d bribe someone to change the deposit law.
Any brewery or distributor can immediately “change the deposit law” by charging the face value of the keg as a deposit. I don’t get why the keg deposit can be as low as 20 or 30 bucks when the replacement cost is at 4 times that. Charge $100 bucks for a deposit a see how many kegs go missing.
I agree! When I rent a car, a movie, or even a library book and fail to return it I am on the hook for the replacement value. No reason breweries can’t be the same.
Some of the ABC states specify the deposit or maximum deposit by law. But in general, they don’t want to raise the deposit because they make more money catering to the generally underage, poor frat-boy crowd which pays with whatever little cash they have. The lack of ethics seems to have worked pretty well for the multi-millionaire executives at BMC
I agree. I think it’s a win-win for them. They’re obviously more concerned with catering to the often younger, cash strapped ‘kegger party’ types than charging what would otherwise be replacement price deposits. And if they get a good number of their kegs actually returned to them, so much the better. If nothing else, BMC are not dumb or naive.
EDIT - For the record, I don’t own any keggles or stolen kegs. It’s just hard to squeeze out many tears for companies that obviously have such a business strategy behind their keg policies.
So when I first read this, it bothered me, but I decided not to reply - too easy to sound like I’m moralizing. But it’s kept bothering me, so I thought I’d give the EHall the opportunity to better express him/herself on his/her view of ethics, and hoping that his/her post was, perhaps, hastily and inelegantly worded.
EHall, do you really think that it’s acceptable to act poorly (unethically), so long as someone else is acting worse? It’s okay to steal a little if someone is stealing more? It’s okay to rape so long as someone else is committing murder (yeah, that one was a big leap, but it’s the same concept)? In my world there “has to be ethics around buying used kegs” because there are ethics around everything we do, to one degree or another. I recognize that some failings are greater than others, but they’re still failings, right?
Well, so much for not moralizing. I feel better now. A little…
But the big breweries don’t really care and that contributes to the problem.
I tried to return some empty kegs a few years ago that got left behind by a caterer. Returning the kegs was hard to do.
The distributor didn’t want them. The brewery (Budweiser, if I recall correctly) didn’t want to be bothered. I don’t recall the resolution, but we finally found someone to take them. We might have just taken them to liquor store and left them. There’s a thread on here somewhere because I posted about it at the time.
Yeah, that was my point, too, Joe. I tried to return kegs before and ran into the same thing. It’s clear that getting the kegs back isn’t a huge concern, to say the least. I didn’t even want the damn things. I set mine behind the liquor store I bought them from and drove off. I think the moral struggle might be getting a little overblown.
