Keg beer’s miraculous rejuvenation?

United Kingdom | Responding to accusations that it has re-labelled old kegs with new best-before-dates, Heineken has said that the unbroached kegs, which had been repatriated during the lockdown, have been kept in optimum conditions and are therefore fit to be redistributed.

According to the website The Morning Advertiser, publicans had complained about receiving re-labelled kegs from the brewer ahead of the reopening of pubs. A spokesperson for Heineken was quoted as saying that the Dutch brewer has been very transparent about extending the best-before-date on its kegs. Going forward, all its kegs will have the longer best-before-date on.

However, the Chief Executive of the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), James Calder, attacked Heineken, saying that its re-labelling was “a breach of trust”.

Talking to The Morning Advertiser, Mr Calder said that “if the global brewers are re-labelling old kegs of beer with new labels and changing best-before-dates, this is a huge breach of trust with publicans and punters, who in many cases, have been told kegs are being replaced ‘new for old’. In this case, they are not.”

During the lockdown period, brewers had to drain a significant amount of beer, which hurt independent craft brewers particularly hard. “The idea that global brewers are simply shipping the same kegs of beer from before the lockdown back into pubs will likely come as a huge shock to beer drinkers and publicans alike,” Mr Calder said.

Heineken does not seem to be alone in rejuvenating pre-lockdown keg beer. AB-InBev has taken to re-labelling its Jupiler pils beer in Belgium too.