450 Kegs Are Stolen From the Guinness Brewery

The brewery had already loaded the cargo. The thief supplied the truck.

On Wednesday afternoon, 28 November 2007, a man drove a truck into the dispatch yard at the Guinness brewery on Victoria Quay in Dublin.

This was not an obscure warehouse at an abandoned hour.

It was the busy pre-Christmas period, when the brewery was reportedly handling more than 250 truck movements each day.

The traffic provided useful camouflage.

Trailers in the yard had already been loaded for delivery.

The driver backed his truck up to one of them.

He connected the trailer.

Then he drove out through the brewery gates and into Dublin traffic.

The trailer contained 450 kegs of beer.

Contemporary reports broke the cargo down precisely: 180 kegs of Guinness, 180 of Budweiser and 90 of Carlsberg.

That was about 40,000 pints, with a reported wholesale value of approximately €64,000.

The theft was discovered shortly afterward. Gardaí examined CCTV footage, and Guinness owner Diageo described it as an unprecedented breach of security at the brewery.

The empty trailer was later found at Slane Hill in County Meath.

Arrests, charges and the recovery of property followed. The available contemporary record does not establish that the driver acted entirely alone or explain the final destination of every keg.

The central operation, however, was remarkably simple.

The brewery had assembled the beer, filled the kegs, loaded the trailer and placed it in the yard.

The thief supplied the front half of the vehicle.

Then 450 kegs left by the main gate.