I have someone else's brewery keg – what now?

How foreign kegs come about

Nobody plans to own other people's kegs. They accumulate, and always along the same four routes:

• Business closure. A pub closes, the yard is cleared, and the stock holds kegs from three suppliers and two previous tenants.
• Returns through the trade. A specialist beverage wholesaler gets empties back and sorts them by keg type, not by brand. Somewhere the allocation tips over.
• Festivals and events. After the marquee comes down, there is more standing on the site than was delivered – or less.
• Purchase. Someone buys a pallet of “stainless steel kegs” and only later notices that there is a logo on them.

In all four cases the person left holding the kegs is, as a rule, acting in good faith. And in all four cases that changes less about the legal position than most people assume.

Why a keg is not a find

Two sentences explain almost everything.

The first is in the terms and conditions of almost every brewery, represented here by this wording: “All returnable empties (kegs, crates, bottles, etc.) remain our property despite payment of a deposit.”

So the deposit is not a purchase price but a security. Whoever has paid it has borrowed a keg. The American brewers' association puts the same principle more briefly: paying the deposit transfers no ownership, the keg always remains the property of the brewery.

The second sentence is in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB, the German Civil Code) and is the reason why “but I bought them in good faith” often does not help here. § 935 Absatz 1 BGB:

In plain terms: with a thing that the owner has lost, you do not become the owner even if you acquired it in the best of faith. The second sentence is especially relevant for kegs – it also applies when the brewery had lent the keg out and it went missing at the publican's.

The section applies in Germany – the principle behind it does not stop there. That a deposit payment transfers no ownership and that the keg belongs to the brewery is not a German peculiarity. The consumer arm of the American brewers' association puts it in one sentence: whoever leaves a deposit is renting – not buying; the keg remains the property of the brewery. What differs from country to country is the question of the circumstances under which a good-faith buyer can nevertheless become the owner. The starting point is the same: the deposit is a security.

Whether a particular keg has been lost in the legal sense, or whether the possessor gave it away voluntarily, is decided case by case – and that is not a question that can be settled in a yard. This section describes the rule, not your specific keg.

What helps – and what makes the problem bigger

For completeness: the Californian rule applies in California and is not an interpretation of German law. But it shows where the assessment is heading – and that the manufacturer's embossing on the keg is legally an anchor, not decoration.

How to allocate a keg

Ten minutes and a phone are usually enough. Four places need to be checked.

• The shell – screen print or brand markThe most conspicuous place, and the one that fades fastest. Even lettering that is barely legible can often still be allocated if you photograph it in raking light. Instead of lettering, some breweries work with coloured rings.
• The chime – embossing and serial numberEmbossed or lasered in at the top and bottom. Here you find the manufacturer, the vintage and often a running number. This embossing survives decades and every cleaning – it is the most reliable identifier on the keg.
• The neck area – marking rings and stickersMany operations mark the keg at the neck, because that spot sits protected when kegs are stacked. Transponders often sit here too.
• Codes and transpondersBarcode, matrix code, dot code or RFID. Modern inspection lines read exactly these features – with cycle times of six to ten seconds per keg. If you find a sticker with a code, photograph it sharply; it is the fastest allocation.

Photograph all four places, plus an overview shot and the neck seen vertically from above. With these five pictures a specialist firm can usually say who owns the keg – and whether it is still fit for circulation at all.

The practical sequence

The freight question – honestly considered

There is no clean solution here, and it helps nobody to pretend otherwise. The US brewers' association describes the dilemma clearly in its guide to repatriation: breweries, wholesalers and logistics firms pay deposit and freight for a truckload of kegs and then find that other breweries' kegs are among them – and understandably want their costs covered when the keg goes home again.

There is no general rule about who bears that freight. In practice it comes down to an understanding, and that usually works out as long as nobody starts with a lawyer. For larger quantities breweries generally collect the kegs themselves – from half a pallet upwards the trip is worth it for them.

How big the problem is

There are few robust figures. These three are documented.

All three figures come from outside Germany, two from the USA and one from Ireland. For the German market we have no comparable survey – and so we claim none. The working deposit system in Germany suggests that the rates are lower here; we cannot prove it.

What can be said: every keg that is allocated is a keg that does not have to be replaced. And in almost every case the cause of the problem is the same – missing or illegible marking. A keg without a clear identifier is anonymous in the cycle; if it turns up somewhere, nobody knows where it should go.

What we take on

Identifying, allocating, making contact with the brewery, organising pickup and freight, handling the return. For us that is everyday business, and for you it is usually the faster route than finding out yourself who a faded brand mark belongs to. All you need for it is the quantity, the location and a few photos of the embossing.

What we do not do: buy kegs with someone else's branding without the origin being settled. Not out of pedantry, but because we are not allowed to put them back into use. Anyone who takes them off your hands without asking is handing you back the risk as soon as it comes to light.

And if you are on the other side – as a brewery whose kegs are not coming back: the most effective lever is marking during refurbishment. In the process it costs almost nothing, because the keg passes through the hands anyway, and it is the precondition for a stray keg being able to find its way back at all. Talk to us if you want your stock marked.

In short

Another brewery's keg is neither a find nor scrap metal. A deposit transfers no ownership, and with things that have been lost, good faith does not help either.

The right way is unexcited: separate, photograph, write, settle the freight, sign off the handover. It takes longer than a call to the scrap dealer and it is the only way that does not bring you post later on.

And for breweries, the sentence that brings back the most kegs: asking politely beats threatening.