Frugality • Saving Money

How to Get Empty Beer Kegs for Free

Beer kegs are useful for many things from storing your latest batch of homebrew to building cool flower planters and even furniture. Beer kegs are cool, so cool that you’re wondering how to get empty beer kegs for free. Well, there is a problem. The same reason you want beer kegs for free is the same reason people don’t really give them away. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can acquire empty beer kegs and, if you’re lucky, maybe even score one for free.

Easiest Ways to get Empty Beer Kegs  

By far, the easiest way to get empty beer kegs is to buy them. This goes for all shapes and sizes, whether you want a small two-gallon keg for the new beer tap you installed in your house or a few 15-gallon kegs to get your homebrew business off the ground.

Many online homebrew stores offer kegs for sale, like the Beverage Factory, but these high-quality kegs are not cheap. A small one to two and a half liter homebrew keg will run you around $100, while larger five-gallon ones cost more than $200. On the commercial side, the prices are not much better offering larger sizes at relatively the same prices but requiring professional-grade equipment to properly use. 

There are more cost-effective ways to buy beer kegs online with retailers like eBay. Here you will find all kinds of kegs at much more reasonable prices. eBay kegs are definitely cheaper because they are used and more than likely to be coming from someone who did not return them to the store. When you go to your local liquor store to get a keg for a party you’re not buying the vessel, you’re buying the beer inside it.

The store normally charges a deposit for the keg on top of what the beer cost. This is an incentive for you to return it. So, essentially, you rent a keg with beer in it. Once the drinks have been consumed, you return the keg and get your $30, or whatever amount, back. 

How to Get Empty Beer Kegs For Free

Getting your hands on a free beer keg is actually a lot harder than it sounds. For all the reasons mentioned before kegs are not cheap and people want them. There are a few places you can look for free kegs but it’s mostly going to come down to blind luck.

The best place to start your search for a free keg is none other than the yard sale of the internet Craigslist. On Craig’s list of random goods and services, you can find anything including beer kegs. One cool thing about Craigslist is when you go to the website it automatically filters what city you’re in so you can start finding stuff in your area. Within moments of starting my search, I found an antique whiskey barrel I never knew I needed. So, try to stay on task because it’s easy to get lost down the rabbit hole. 

As a last-ditch effort, if you are hard up for a beer keg, you can call around to your local scrap yards and see if they have any. You should only go this route if you’re looking to use the keg for a project and not actual beer. I say this because God only knows what the keg has been through before it made it to the scrap yard. 

The scrapyard path could be a bust entirely, depending on what state you live in. Some states like California have laws making it illegal to sell kegs to scrap yards. On the other hand, some states have no laws on the subject so be sure to check before your local metal recycler thinks you’re a criminal. 

Hopefully, this article helped you on your search to get empty beer kegs for free. If you are interested in more money-saving tips from Clever Dude check out our read more section below.

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Drew Blankenship

Drew Blankenship is a former Porsche technician who writes and develops content full-time. He lives in North Carolina, where he enjoys spending time with his wife and two children. While Drew no longer gets his hands dirty modifying Porsches, he still loves motorsport and avidly watches Formula 1.