Calling Austin Beer Works out!

30 days would not be nearly enough for the average kegorator with a half barrel.

It would easily have to be 3 months.

Just my thoughts...but I do not think that would really work.

 

Specs is $50 and I know of another place that only charges $30.

 

Except those kegs are pretty dangerous. There are a lot of breweries that refuse to use them

 

Kegs are different than general equipment rentals in that they are not easily replaceable and are necessary for breweries to operate.

We can't replace a keg whenever one goes missing. From our supplier, I believe the minimum order is 27 kegs. But, to minimize shipping costs we typically order 100s of kegs at a time.

Additionally, it's not simply a loss of equipment - missing kegs translate into a loss of revenue. We cycle through each keg roughly every 3 weeks: A keg is filled, sits in our cold room for about a week, goes to a bar and is emptied in about a week, comes back to the brewery where it is cleaned and refilled within about a week. Rinse and repeat.

The longer kegs are away from the brewery, the less efficiently we're able to operate. If a keg is out for 3 months, that's 3 less filling cycles than we'd typically hope for. Multiply by 100, and that's a loss of 300 fills every three months (over 500bls per year). That requires us to either purchase a larger keg fleet as a buffer, or reduce our sales. Either option significantly affects our bank account, which affects our ability to operate.

The typical keg deposit is $30. Honestly, I don't know exactly where that number comes from, but assume it's just an industry standard set by the really big guys. If we charged a deposit that reflected the actual value of our kegs, we'd lose a lot of accounts. Alcohol retail is a very cash flow sensitive industry. If a bar was forced to pay $500 in deposits for 4 of our kegs, vs $120 for someone else's, that's an additional $380 they could have used to purchase more revenue-generating alcohol.

There are additional complications, but hopefully that provides some general insight to our current position. It's not because we hate you.

 

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I do not blame you one bit on not selling them to consumers.

Out of curiosity, are there other options for you other than buying your own kegs? Aka using a larger company to supply kegs and you just use their kegs?

 

To be clear, we're happy to sell our kegs to consumers. We just want to know where they're going so we can let people know how important it is to return them promptly.

There are keg leasing companies, but their interest rates are ridiculous. They make sense for a bootstrapping start-up brewery or a large regional brewery with multiple distributors where the keg loss is so high that the interest rates become justifiable.

 

Makes sense.

 

Since many of us are homebrewers here on the forum, IF you change your license from a brewery to a brewpub, would it be possible to fill corny kegs? Win-win for all parties. You get money, I get beer, no loss of kegs on your end.

BK

 

What about KeyKegs or similar disposable kegs? Sounds like that will solve a majority of these issues.

http://www.keykeg.com/en/

 

This is why I like this brewery...very open and honest. Not many operate that way. Kudos to ABW.

 

If it's three cycles for everyday high turnover beers like Peacemaker or Fire Eagle you've got to feel for any brewery who makes age-able beers, such as Anchor. How many kegs of Our Special Ale must be sitting in coolers across the country at any one time, waiting to be tapped? The bar I used to work in kept back two every year so we had enough for a three-year-vertical every Christmas. Mind you, I think Anchor are ahead of the game because Anchor Christmas kegs were always the most beat-up kegs in the walk-in. Think about all those kegs of Live Oak Treehugger, Independence Jasperilla and (512) WBADPP lurking in walk-ins around Texas for years at a time. Avery Czar, North Coast Old Stock, Bigfoot, Hibernation, Old Jubilation, 120 Minute and more. There's a lot of brewery money tied up in bar coolers across the country, but if you're going to make a beer that ages well I guess you have to expect that.

 

As far as I know, that would be both possible and legal for brewpubs to do.

But, we're past the self-distribution limit for the brewpub license, so that's not an option for us.

 

It's an option we've looked into. They require very expensive new filling equipment, ultimately end up costing more per unit, and aren't frequently recycled, creating lots of unnecessary waste. They are primarily beneficial for international exports.

 

NXNW is a brewpub though, ABW is a producing brewery. They will not be able to fill the kegs due to them not being able to sell beers to-go.