Pabst Blue Ribbon is trying to track down a major missing beer shipment — and the company is putting cash on the table to get it back.
Greig DeBow, CEO of Pabst Brewing Co., announced Wednesday that Pabst is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for fresh information that helps recover 1,602 cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee. The shipment vanished on Aug. 17 in Southern California.
“I’m sure they look cool with a garage full of PBR,” DeBow joked in a TikTok post. “That’s actually not cool though. We want it back.”
Authorities in Montclair, California, say the beer was taken from a warehouse in two separate thefts that unfolded on the same day.
According to police, the first load — valued at roughly $45,000 and bound for Tucson, Arizona — was picked up but never reached its destination. About an hour later, investigators said, a “purported subcontracting company” used falsified paperwork to collect another shipment worth about $25,000.
Both incidents happened Aug. 17 at an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair, located about 40 miles, or 65 kilometers, east of Los Angeles.
In total, Pabst said the thieves hauled away about 40,000 pounds of beer. Police placed the estimated value of the stolen Pabst Blue Ribbon and Old Milwaukee products at $70,000.
DeBow said Pabst is hoping to have the beer returned by Sept. 9. Anyone with tips about the missing shipment is being asked to contact the company at hotline@pabst.com.
The theft was one of several recent high-profile food heists.
Late last year, 40,000 oysters, lobster worth $400,000 and a cache of crabmeat all were 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.
