Hello, readers. Thanks for being here. Today, we're talking about saving y'all some money with some efficiency. Quick question for you, if you're involved in brewery operations:
Do you know how many kegs you own right now—exactly, not a rough number? If you had to think about it, this post is for you.
Kegs are expensive, mobile, and easy to lose. A half-barrel can cost $100 or more; a sixth-barrel, $80. When kegs leave your dock for distributors or accounts, they enter a chain of custody that's often poorly documented. Many breweries treat keg tracking as an afterthought until the fleet count no longer matches expectations. Here's how to fix it. A half-barrel keg can cost $100 or more; a sixth-barrel, $80. When kegs leave your dock for distributors, bars, or taproom accounts, they enter a chain of custody that is often poorly documented. Many breweries treat keg tracking as an afterthought until the fleet count no longer matches expectations, and replacement costs have become a significant line item.
The Scale of the Problem
Industry estimates suggest that 5 to 10 percent of kegs sent to market never return. Some are lost in the supply chain. Some are held by accounts that go out of business or simply stop responding. Some are damaged and written off without proper documentation. For a brewery with 1,000 kegs in circulation, that represents $5,000 to $10,000 in lost assets annually—and the real cost is higher when you factor in the beer inside and the inability to fulfill orders without sufficient kegs.
What Keg Tracking Requires
Effective keg management starts with a baseline: How many kegs do you own? How many are on premise (filled, empty, or in process)? How many are in the market (at distributors, at accounts)? Without those numbers, you cannot measure loss.
On-premise inventory: Kegs in your brewery should be counted regularly. They may be categorized by status—filled, empty, dirty, in line for cleaning. A simple count by status helps you understand fleet utilization and identify when kegs are not returning from the market as expected.
Outbound tracking: When kegs leave your dock, they should be logged. That means recording the quantity, the destination (distributor, account, or taproom), and the date. If you use a depot or distributor model where kegs are exchanged rather than returned directly, your records should reflect that. The goal is to know, at any point, how many kegs you expect to have at each destination.
Return tracking: When kegs come back, they should be logged. Receiving records should match outbound records. Discrepancies—we sent 20, we got 18 back—should trigger follow-up with the account or distributor.
Depot and Exchange Models
In many markets, kegs move through a depot system. You deliver full kegs; the depot holds empties; you pick up empties on the next delivery. In that model, the depot becomes a key partner. Your records should reflect kegs at the depot separately from kegs at end accounts. Periodic reconciliation with the depot—comparing your ledger to their count—surfaces discrepancies before they become permanent losses.
Reducing Attrition
Tracking alone does not prevent loss, but it identifies where loss occurs. If a particular distributor consistently returns fewer kegs than they received, that relationship needs attention. If certain accounts have high keg age—kegs sitting with them for months—those accounts may need reminders or incentives to return.
Some breweries charge keg deposits or fees to encourage returns. Others use keg identification (barcodes, RFID) to improve traceability. The right approach depends on your market and your relationships. The common thread is that loss reduction requires visibility first, then process.
Integration with Beer Inventory
Keg tracking is not separate from beer inventory. When you fill a keg, you are moving beer from a brite tank to a keg. When that keg leaves for distribution, you are depleting inventory. When the keg returns empty, you are receiving an asset back. The same ledger that tracks beer movements can track keg movements—if kegs are treated as inventory items with their own locations and statuses.
Keg fleet management is a discipline. It requires consistent recording, regular reconciliation, and a willingness to follow up when numbers do not match. The breweries that do it well treat kegs as the valuable, finite assets they are.
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How BrewLedger Supports Keg Tracking
BrewLedger tracks items by location. Kegs can be modeled as inventory items—filled or empty—with movements logged when they leave or return. Paired with batch and depletion tracking, you can see not only where your beer went but where your kegs went. See how it works when you are ready.