Pabst Blue Ribbon offers $20,000 reward to help find its missing beer

Pabst Blue Ribbon wants its beer back, and it is offering a reward to help that happen.

Greig DeBow, the CEO of Pabst Brewing Co, said Wednesday that the company would pay up to US$20,000 to anyone who provides new information that leads to the recovery of 1,602 cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee beer. The beer went missing on August 17 in Southern California.

“I’m sure they look cool with a garage full of PBR,” DeBow said in a post on TikTok. “That’s actually not cool, though. We want it back.”

Police in Montclair, California, said the beer was stolen from a warehouse in two separate incidents on the same day.

In the first heist, about US$45,000 worth of beer headed to Tucson, Arizona, was picked up but never delivered, according to police. An hour later, a “purported subcontracting company” submitted fake documents to pick up another US$25,000 worth of beer, Montclair police said. Both thefts occurred on August 17 at an Anheuser-Busch distribution centre about 40 miles (65 kilometres) east of Los Angeles.

All told, the thieves made off with 40,000 pounds of beer, Pabst said. Police estimated that the stolen beer was worth US$70,000.

DeBow said the company wants the beer to be returned by September 9. Anyone with information is asked to email hotline@pabst.com.

The theft was one of several recent high-profile food heists.

Late last year, 40,000 oysters, lobster worth US$400,000, and a cache of crabmeat were all stolen in separate incidents within weeks of each other in New England.

And in March, Swiss food giant Nestlé said 413,793 KitKat brand chocolate bars bound for Poland were stolen after leaving its production site in Italy.

AP