BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) - Buying a keg for your next party is a little more expensive. Large breweries have complained about losing thousands of beer kegs a year in Michigan because retail beer customers have been selling off the stainless steel barrels at scrap yards rather than returning them to stores to get their $10 deposit back.

As a result, state alcohol officials have boosted the deposit from $10 to $30, The Bay City Times reported Sunday.

For scrap-metal thieves, anything is fair game - siding, gutters, spools of electric cable, pipes, even beer kegs. Some of the more brazen ones raid salvage yards, then sell the stolen metal back to the businesses.

Thefts of copper wire, auto parts and aluminum siding let crooks tap the market for scrap metal, where some items brought record amounts per pound in May, said Tim Neal, materials manager at a Bay City scrap yard.

"Copper prices peaked out about a month ago at more than $3 a pound," Neal said.
Stainless steel was worth about 25 cents a pound late in 2005, but fetched about $1.75 per pound in early May, he said.

It costs a beer manufacturer about $152 to buy a new half-barrel when one disappears, according to Ken Wozniak of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.
He said a Michigan brewing company asked the commission last year to raise the $10 deposit to $90 per keg.

"The Commission thought that request was a little steep," Wozniak said. "The purpose of the increase in the barrel deposit to $30 was to ensure the return of the keg, not necessarily to cover the (beer manufacturer's) cost of the keg."
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Information from: The Bay City Times - http://www.bc-times.com