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Do you want to sell used kegs?
We buy used kegs – single pallets as well as complete fleets from business closures. Even when the kegs no longer look like much.
The most common mistake costs the most money
A stainless steel keg weighs between seven and twelve kilograms. Calculated at scrap value that comes to a two-figure sum – and it is exactly this calculation that leads to kegs being melted down every year that would have run for another twenty years or more.
A keg is not a piece of sheet metal. It is a pressure vessel with a test history and a valve that on its own can be worth more than the metal around it. The residual value lies in the cycles it still has left.
What you should do before you call
Ten minutes of preparation change the quote, because they turn an estimate into a calculation.
Count and sort by design
Not "about eighty kegs", but "44 EURO 50 l, 26 DIN 30 l, 12 unclear". The last group can stay, it just has to be named.
Measure diameter and height
A folding rule is enough. 363 mm means DIN, 395 mm means EURO, anything below that is a slim design.
Measure the spear body
74.5 mm body diameter means flat or combi (M-type), 70 mm means triangular (G-type). Where no body sits above the neck at all, it is a EU Sankey (S-type) or a US Sankey spear (D-type). And if you measure 68 mm: that is always the left-hand thread version – both features only ever occur together. Between flat (A-type) and combi the view from above decides: on the combi spear (M-type) a recessed stainless-steel ball sits beneath the seal’s CO₂ valve; on the flat spear (A-type) the down tube face lies almost flush in the seal.
Photograph the neck vertically from above
The most important picture. From it a specialist can see in two seconds whether the keg is a case for refurbishment.
The same neck again, at an angle
The angled shot shows the area below the neck, where the spear sits. That is what reveals threadless versions: if there is a black plastic ring there, an ABS spear is installed – and that one has no thread.
Photograph the markings, including faded ones
They decide whether a keg has to be sold, reworked or returned to the brewery.
One shot of the general condition, from the side
The whole shell in frame, from a little distance. Dents, the start of corrosion and warped stacking rims show up at once – and with them, whether refurbishment is realistic.
Clarify access
Forklift available, yard suitable for lorries? Whoever states this in advance gets a firm quote instead of an approximate one.
Other breweries' kegs are a separate case
If kegs bearing the logo of another brewery are standing in the yard, the question is not what they are worth but who owns them. The terms and conditions of almost every brewery contain the same sentence in substance: Despite the deposit paid, returnable empties remain the property of the brewery.
That is why we do not simply buy kegs carrying someone else’s brand. We identify them, assign them and, on request, handle their return to the brewery – routine work for us and usually the faster route for you. More on this in the blog.