How many kegs???

[Neckbone]

Here's a question for all you packaging breweries. How many kegs do you have in your inventory? This should include all that are in your warehouse, the distributors, and retailers. Also, what is your annual production?

Basically, I'm trying to get an idea how many a 3000 bbl/yr brewery should have in inventory.

[maddbrewer]

Hello, I used to work at a brewery that produced 4300bbl a year we had 1000 kegs all together. But with that the distribution wasn't that broad. So having just that amount worked. Now I'm with a bigger brewery and we use Microstar, they are a keg managment company. Don't have to worry to much about lossing kegs. (to a point)

[Michael Murphy]

we have over 5000 kegs but at any given time we have about 400 disposable to use. We have trouble kepping up with who has how many, and we even have had distributors ship over 300 empties back to a larger brewery because they just didnt think about it....geez I need every keg

we do about 12000 hl per year- 4000hl in kegs

[Neckbone]

I definately can't see spending $50k+ at startup on kegs. That ties up alot of money that could be spent elsewhere. Maybe I'll look into the pricing of the Microstar managment. Any idea how the billint works, and how much it runs your brewery?

[Beersmith]

I always figure about 4-5 kegs are needed for each tap in the market - that number will go up if you distribute out-of-state or further away. We produce almost 2,000bl per year with about 650 50L kegs and 150 1/6 bbl. I'm not out to knock MicroStar here, they do provide a valuable service that may or may not work for your brewery. However, I can't emphasize enough how much benefit owning our kegs from day one has been. I would only consider a service such as MicroStar if I had a very wide distribution area. With 3,000 bbl per year of production, I'm guessing that you won't be covering enough territory to warrant the added expense of "leasing". Remember if you are distributing in a fairly compact geographic area, your kegs will be turning over faster. Therefore if you own them you are paying them off more rapidly. The opposite is true with leasing (MicroStar), if you turn your kegs quickly, your "capital" cost per keg goes up. Just my $.02...

[Brewery Finance]

You are absolutely right that you shouldn't be spending your start up capital on equipment like kegs. Have you considered leasing them? We can generally finance your kegs for about $3-5 per month/keg. I would be more than happy to talk to you about it if you like.

Regards,

Rick Wehner
Brewery Finance
rickw@breweryfinance.com
303-800-1063