Thieves Take 30,000 Beers, Forget to Steal Moderation

The thieves removed 40,000 pounds of beer from a California warehouse, which is less a casual drinks run than an attempt to give the entire state a difficult morning.

Roughly 34,000 cans disappeared in two separate heists at the same distribution centre on the same day. The cargo amounted to more than 1,500 cases and was valued by police at about $70,000. Moderation, it appears, was not among the items collected.

The thefts happened on 17 August at an Anheuser-Busch distribution centre in Montclair, Southern California, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. The missing cans included Pabst Blue Ribbon and non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee beer, ensuring that even the designated driver had been considered.

According to Montclair police, the first load contained about $45,000 worth of beer and was supposed to be heading to Tucson, Arizona. It was picked up but never arrived at its intended destination, suggesting the journey took a fairly substantial wrong turn.

Just one hour later, a “purported subcontracting company” presented fake documents at the same warehouse and collected another $25,000 worth of beer. The two episodes were treated as separate heists, although their timing, location and unusually specific shared interest have prompted investigators to examine whether they were parts of a single operation.

Police said on Friday that they were still trying to establish whether the thefts were connected. No suspects were identified in the information released, and there was no indication that the missing cargo had been recovered.

Pabst Blue Ribbon responded by turning the case into a light-hearted social media campaign, publishing the estimated weight of the stolen cargo and beginning a countdown calling for its return. Forty thousand pounds is, at any rate, an amount likely to make discreet storage rather more complicated than pushing it behind the orange juice.

“To the thief: we don’t fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way,” the company wrote on Instagram.

It then clarified the mood with: “P.s. this is real and we are deadly serious.”

The next step belongs to Montclair police, who are searching for those responsible and working out whether both collections were organised together. Pabst, meanwhile, would like its 1,500-plus cases back, preferably before the countdown ends and without anyone attempting to claim they simply misplaced them in the fridge.