A keg earns money for exactly as long as there is beer in it. After that it is a steel container of your working capital, parked in someone else’s cellar, waiting for a collection that may or may not get organised. The brewery’s margin assumes each keg refills and returns many times over - so a keg that stops circulating costs far more than its scrap value, and small breweries rarely notice the leak until the float feels mysteriously tight before a busy weekend.
What you will learn
- Where kegs actually go
- The keg register
- Labels that survive the keg washer
- Scan out, scan back: the float loop
- Deposits, dwell time and chasing
- Running it in software
- FAQ
Where kegs actually go
- They sit empty at venues. The beer sold weeks ago; the empty stands in a cellar corner waiting for “next delivery” - which goes to a different venue.
- They join other pools. A busy dray collects everything stainless near the door. Your keg now circulates in someone else’s fleet, in good faith, indefinitely.
- Events scatter them. Festival bars strike fast; kegs without a collection plan stay wherever the marquee stood.
- They get weighed in. Stainless steel has scrap value, and an unmarked keg in a yard is anonymous money.
- Nobody owns the chase. Deliveries have an owner; collections are everyone’s job and therefore no one’s. Without clear accountability for empties, the float shrinks one forgotten cellar at a time.
The keg register
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Keg ID | The number on the label, the delivery note and the chase email |
| Size and coupler type | Settles what was actually delivered and what fits the venue’s gear |
| Manufacturer serial or embossing | The permanent fallback identity when a label finally dies |
| Purchase date + price | The real replacement cost - the number your deposit probably is not |
| Status | In the cold store, at a customer, in transit, in repair, retired |
| Current holder + out date | Which venue or distributor has it, and how long it has sat there |
| Condition notes | Dents, suspect spears, valve trouble - flagged before the next fill |
A register also answers the quieter question of how many kegs you truly own, as opposed to how many you have bought - two numbers that drift apart fast in this trade.
Labels that survive the keg washer
Kegs lead one of the harshest lives of any business asset: caustic wash cycles, steam, stacking, rolling, freezing cellars.
- Paper dies in the first wash. Use durable laminated labels rated for chemicals and heat.
- Place labels in the recessed top chime, beside the handle - sheltered from rolling and stacking, and visible from above when scanning a stacked row.
- Test before you commit. Run a handful of labelled kegs through several wash cycles before labelling the whole fleet.
- Keep a permanent backup. Stamped, engraved or embossed IDs survive anything; the QR label is for speed, the stamp is for certainty.
- Scan with a phone camera at the cellar door. A QR scan beats transcribing keg numbers onto a wet clipboard - and it actually happens, because it is faster than not doing it.
RFID tags and telemetry trackers do exist for keg fleets at distributor scale; for a float of fifty kegs, the economics rarely beat a durable label and a scanning habit.
Tip: scan at the threshold. A keg is checked out when it crosses the venue’s door, not when the paperwork is tidied up back at the brewery. Threshold habits survive busy delivery rounds; back-office habits do not.
Scan out, scan back: the float loop
- Delivery is a checkout to the venue. Scan each keg out to the named customer with the date. The delivery note and the register now agree.
- Collection is the check-in. Empties scanned back on the same visit close the loop, and the venue’s record shows exactly what remains.
- Distributor moves are transfers. When stock shifts between sites, transfer the kegs to the new holder rather than letting the trail snap.
- The weekly float review. Every keg should be in the cold store, in transit, or at a named customer. Anything that fails that test is this week’s phone call - not this year’s write-off.
Deposits, dwell time and chasing
Deposits are an incentive, not insurance - they are routinely set below what a new keg costs, and a venue that has absorbed the deposit into its books has no reason to hurry your steel home. What actually brings kegs back:
- Dwell-time sorting. List everything out by out-date, oldest first. The top of that list is the chase list.
- Specific chasing. “You have K-114 and K-203, delivered 12 March” gets a cellar checked; “do you have any of our kegs?” gets a shrug. Specificity comes free once each keg’s movement log is on record.
- Collection bundled with delivery. Make “scan the empties” a standing step of every drop, so collection stops depending on anyone’s memory.
Mobile bar operators can run the identical loop for catering equipment - same threshold scans, same weekly review.
Running it in software
Keg spreadsheets fail for one structural reason: the events happen in vans and cellars, and the sheet lives in the office. Drivers do not update spreadsheets mid-round, so the float gets reconciled weekly from memory and delivery stubs - which is to say, fiction. (Why Excel fails for asset tracking unpacks this.)
AMPthilly moves the recording to the threshold: each keg has a profile with its serial, photos and history; printable QR labels are generated in batches; a scan with a normal phone camera opens the keg’s record in the browser - no app for the driver to install - and checking it out to the venue takes seconds. The register shows every keg per customer, the overdue view is your chase list, and the audit history settles who-had-it disputes. The free plan covers 3 users and 25 assets - a starter float, tracked for nothing - and paid plans scale from there.
FAQ
How do small breweries keep track of their kegs? Number and label every keg, scan deliveries out to named venues and empties back in, and review the float weekly. Anything not in the cold store, in transit or at a named customer is this week’s call.
Will QR labels survive keg washing? Paper will not; laminated chemical-rated labels in the recessed top chime last far longer. Test a few through wash cycles first, and keep a stamped ID as backup.
How do I know which venue has my kegs? Check kegs out to the venue at delivery and back in at collection. The register then shows each customer’s holdings, with dates, so chasing is specific.
Are keg deposits enough to prevent losses? No - deposits typically sit below replacement cost. They are an incentive; the register, dwell-time reviews and specific chasing are the actual control.
What should a keg register include? Keg ID, size and coupler, manufacturer serial, purchase date and price, status, current holder with out date, and condition notes.
The takeaway
Keg losses are not dramatic; they are slow, polite and continuous - an empty in a cellar here, a stray on a dray there. Number the fleet with labels that survive the washer, scan every keg out to a named venue and back in at collection, and read the dwell-time list weekly. The breweries that keep their float are not luckier - they chase specifically, and early.