:icon_offtopic: ish, not trying to hijack and not trying to start a sh*t fight just pleading ignorance. Could someone please point out to me how you can actually identify whether a sale of a 2nd hand is being sold to you leagally or not. As in most cases you'd take it on good faith that those selling them have the right to do so, discounting the obviously dodgies sale. For example is there a register for kegs that you can cross reference to see if they have been disposed of or are avalible for sale or stolen. Why I 'm asking is, cause some of the opportunities I've seen in the past 12 months in Melbourne and Sydney has got me to the point of hooking up a trailer or borrowing a ute and bring a load back to Adelaide as long as it is all above board. As recently I've seen a number of Blue Tongue Kegs (30 odd) up for sale in an auction house here and can't work out why they have called for there return
Cheers
Alright, I'll try to answer this, but please... I not trying to tell you that you should
care whether any given keg is legit or not, just give some information to someone who has asked and so obviously does care. Please dont turn it into some sort of big brewers vs homebrewers moral shitfight... I'm just answering a question.
Kegs are worth well in excess of $100 to replace. Why would a brewery willingly let their $100 dollars sit in someones yard for a year, get sold for $15 bucks and never see a cent of the money. Would you? Sure, there
are legit kegs around and the ones from this OP most certainly might be some of them. BUT - if kegs are current style sanke kegs that are branded with the logo of a working brewery... Why is it that the original owners no longer want their money?
I cant speak about what smaller brewers do - but i know for a fact that there is almost no chance that any current style kegs you see from big australian brewers, non-current breweries that were bought by a big brewer, or brands that are imported by big brewers - are legit. If they are functional, the brewers would like to put beer in them and want them back, or if they are non functional they would have been sold to a scrap dealer under the strict condition that they be destroyed. That way a brewer like CUB can look at the BBQ you made out of one of their kegs and know without doubt, that somewhere along the lines, someone stole it from them - they DO NOT sell them. Very very rarely they might give them to someone, but it will always be accompanied by a letter detailing the kegs serial number and the fact that the person is entitled to be in possesion of the keg.
Kegs are worth good money - if it was plasma TVs and someone was offering them for 10% of the price you knew they were worth - how much chance is there that its really discarded stock from Harvey Norman that they decided they couldn't be bothered to collect from the warehouse they were storing it in?
Big breweries will have a record of the serial numbers of the kegs they have bought, the ones they have sent for destruction and any they might have sold or given away - there is no way for you to tell though, except to work with the logic. If the keg has a brewer's name stamped into it, then in all probability its not legit and maybe you should call the brewery in question to ask... If you care.