Keg Management Solutions: Do You Need Keg Tracking Software?

Any brewery who distributes their product outside of their own taproom or storefront could benefit from keg management. While many breweries charge their customers kegs deposits, the deposit often isn't enough to cover the replacement cost of missing kegs. When kegs go missing it costs your brewery money.

The best solution for your business will depend on factors like how many kegs you have, and what kind of distribution model you work within. For breweries doing a small amount of self-distribution, it might be feasible to stay on top of your keg fleet without a dedicated software. For larger breweries with a distribution heavy business model, tracking kegs using unique barcodes could be a game changer, dramatically reducing keg loss costs year over year.

In this article we'll dive into three different management solutions:

• Tracking kegs manually without a dedicated software
• Using a dedicated keg tracking and maintenance tool
• Exploring keg management options built into your brewery management system

For smaller breweries, doing a limited amount of self distribution, a more manual keg tracking solution might suffice. Custom spreadsheets can work well in this case. To get started consider what you'd like to track, good starting points are:

• Which customer has a keg
• When each keg went out
• Whether or not a deposit was charged

With this basic information logged in a spreadsheet, you can keep tabs on how many kegs each customer has at any given time, and easily keep track of whether or not kegs have been out for extended periods of time. As your distribution model grows, it may be worth assigning each keg a unique serial number so that you can see exactly which kegs are at each customer location. To make this manual tracking system more efficient you might want to consider making it accessible on mobile, or outside of the brewery. This could be as simple as using a cloud based tool like Google Sheets or Notion.

If you are looking for a solution that is a little more automated, you might want to consider a dedicated keg tracking tool like kegshoe. There are several tools available for comprehensive and automated keg tracking. Depending on the size of your cooperage and the scope of your distribution model, you may be looking for different benefits in a keg tracking tool.

Some tools allow you to automatically track things like keg location, and when your kegs are tapped and untapped. Others offer insights into things like how your kegs are being stored when with a third party distributor. This information and traceability helps with quality control and can help you schedule routine maintenance with ease.

If you are looking to tie keg management into your brewery inventory management, tracking your kegs through your brewery management software could be the way to go. By going this route you could track your kegs from the moment they're filled, through to delivery and then return.

As beer goes out of your tank and into kegs, your brewer could scan the barcode of every keg being filled. From there you can invoice your customers, and scan the kegs going out to them upon delivery before scanning the codes once more on keg return.

By managing your kegfleet in your brewery management software you could also gain access to valuable information at the click of a button, like:

• How many kegs each customer has
• What kegs need picking up
• Whether or not kegs have been out for a prolonged period of time.

Keg loss affects your profitability. While keg tracking doesn't completely eliminate keg loss costs, it can reduce them dramatically. With Brew Ninja you can track every keg in your fleet with ease, in the same user-friendly platform that you are managing the rest of your business from. Plus, you can even generate and print barcodes or QR codes for your kegs right from Brew Ninja for no added cost. Our team is here if you'd like to talk about the importance of asset tracking and discuss your options - schedule a chat.