Detectives in northwest England are hunting for two truckloads of Guinness — roughly 70,000 pints, worth an estimated £205,000 including the stolen trailers — after thieves drove off with them from an industrial estate near Liverpool.
According to Cheshire Police, cited by CP24, the theft unfolded in two stages on the night of September 1 at an industrial estate in Runcorn. One lorry pulled in around 7:45 p.m., hitched up a loaded trailer and drove off toward the Mersey Gateway crossing; a second lorry arrived about 90 minutes later and left with a matching trailer around 9:30 p.m., according to timings reported by The Morning Advertiser. Together the two trailers held some 800 barrels of stout bound for pubs across the region. Neither driver has been identified.
"It is famously said that 'Guinness is good for you,' but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for... We will settle for nothing less than the full recovery of all the items stolen."
— Detective Sergeant Gary McClatchy, Cheshire Police
The disappearance has left some publicans short of stock, according to The Drinks Business, and Guinness's parent company, Diageo, is said to be assisting investigators in tracing the missing barrels. The theft ranks among the larger documented beer heists in the U.K. in recent years, part of a periodic pattern of high-value drink thefts hitting the country's food-and-drink supply chain.
Cheshire Police say the investigation is ongoing and have appealed to hauliers, pub landlords and anyone offered suspiciously cheap Guinness to come forward. No arrests have been announced.
Losing two trailers' worth of stock is unlikely to cause shortages on its own, but the case adds to a familiar pattern in Britain, where loaded drinks trailers moving between depots and pubs are periodically targeted by organized thieves precisely because a single haul can be worth six figures and, once repackaged, is difficult for buyers to distinguish from legitimately sourced stock.
