Beer Stolen at Ireland's Oldest Brewery
The theft of 450 kegs of beer consisting of 180 kegs of Guinness stout, 90 kegs of Danish beer Carlsberg and 180 of U.S. lager Budweiser were stolen from the Guinness brewery in Ireland last week.
The beer bandit calmly drove into the brewery, hitched his HTV truck to a fully loaded trailer which contained a total of 22,500 litres of beer estimated worth of £64,000 awaiting delivery to city pubs, and just as calmly drove out of the yard through the main gates.
No witnesses have come forward with any form of description, and police are now examining CCTV footage from around the St James’s Gate Brewery and surrounding areas. The Police are resisting suggestions that they call it coldflow – the popular chilled version of draught Guinness.
Dublin wags have named the thief ‘The Beer Hunter’ and police believe that the lone raider may try to sell the stolen loot to numerous pubs and bars within in the city.
A somewhat embarrassing time for Dublin’s police force as 160 extra officers had just been placed on street patrol for the commencement of Operation Freeflow the pre-Christmas warming to drink-drivers which left the way almost wide open for an opportunistic bandit to drive out of the brewery with the stolen trailer unseen.
The empty trailer was discovered some time later in Slane Hill in Co Meath.
The Guinness Brewery
Guinness is Ireland’s largest beer supplier to a population of 4.3 million and over 10,000 pubs and bars and with the run up to Christmas there can be approximately 240 truck movements, both in and out of the complex every day.
Grainne Mackin, a spokes-woman for Diageo Ireland, said: “We’ve never had such a breach of security prior to this and we’re taking it extremely seriously. All CCTV footage on site is being viewed and the Gardai are also looking at CCTV footage along the quays. The haul has a significant value. We have more trailers coming in and out as we are coming up to Christmas. What could they possibly want with all that beer?”
Previous Beer Heists
Although this is the first time that a theft has taken place at the Guinness brewery in Dublin, it is in no way the only time that beer has been stolen on a large scale.
The Irish Republian Army and other gangs have in the past hijacked large truck shipments of alcoholic beverages for resale in pubs that were run by sympathisers or friends.
Four trucks full of cans of lager worth £500.000 were stolen by theives in Gloucester last year.
In Semptember, two tractors filled with brew were taken in the early hours of the morning from a loading yard in Mississauga, Canada. One of the tractors contained 69,000 bottles of beer and the other held over 44,000 bottles.
That's a lot of beer and the thieves certainly had a lot of bottle!