Business Opinion

with James Crawfurd-Porter

Brewers must keep an eye on their kegs

Casks and kegs must be the most enduring eco-friendly packaging of modern times. While the glass industry has deemed it more efficient to recycle glass rather than reuse bottles, a traditional beer container probably spends more time on the back of a dray than most BDMs spend driving around their outlets.

If treated properly a keg can last for more than 20 years (and so can BDMs, at a push!). But for most of the 50-odd years since kegs took over from wooden casks, brewers have had the challenge of ensuring they are not spirited away to either end up in the hands of unscrupulous scrap metal dealers or in a field helping a budding Zara Phillips to practise her showjumping.

So I find it scandalous that brewing companies should suggest now that individual licensees should be made to

pay for their inability to find a solution to this age-old problem.

It is simply unacceptable to demand that any customer - especially the tenant of a community pub, which is probably already struggling to keep itself afloat, and which will have the smoking ban to contend with in just a couple of months time - should fork out a £50 deposit for each and every beer keg that's delivered to him or her.

I recognise keg-napping is a massive problem - but I take exception to the accusation by brewers that it's the fault of individual licensees that up to a million kegs could go missing this year.

Take a look at some back copies of the MA or visit the Kegwatch website. I guarantee it won't be long before you come across a story of a brewer losing a substantial quantity of kegs from their own premises.

If the brewers can't even protect their kegs, what hope is there for licensees? It seems to me that the brewers ought to be concentrating on tightening up security in their own storage yards.

And perhaps when they have found a proper and workable solution to their own problems they might have second thoughts about penalising customers to compensate for

their own inability to keep a hold on one of their most valuable assets.

James Crawfurd-Porter is managing

director of Tadcaster Pub Company