Tens of thousands of beers stolen in Sweetwater Brewery trailer theft

ATLANTA — Local beer brewing company, Sweetwater Brewery, is out tens of thousands of beers after two trailers were stolen from their facility in NW Atlanta early Tuesday morning.

The brewery said the trailers were later found separated; one on Camp Creek Parkway, and the other on Southwoods Parkway.

Both trailers were found empty of a total of 78,000 beer bottles. The varieties that were taken were: 420, IPA, Goin Coastal IPA and Take Two Pils.

Channel 2's Berndt Peterson was with officers Tuesday afternoon when they found about half of the stolen beer at a Clayton County warehouse.
 
"I was here, but I really don't want to talk about it," manager Charles Strong said. "I'm very upset with the situation."
 
Strong says he runs the warehouse in Conley, where the load was dropped off. 
 
Officials say the beer was taken from the Sweetwater Brewery in northeast Atlanta. 
 
The bosses here figure some time during the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the thieves hooked up truck tractors to two trailers full of beer and drove off.  By 12 p.m., thanks to GPS  tracking devices, the empty trailers were located. 
 
A short time later, 720 cases were tracked down in the Conley warehouse.
 
"This would be a pretty big red flag to see something like this come in here," Steve Farace with the brewery said.  "And then the guys put a tarp over it so people wouldn't see it."
 
But this is only 'part' of the 3,271 cases Sweetwater says were taken. 
 
"Did you know it was stolen?" Petersen asked.
 
 "No, I did not.  I had no clue," Strong said. "Guys asked me to off-load it for them, and he'd be back the next day to pick it up.  And that's it."

Cox Media Group