Someone Stole 50,000 Cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Company Says: ‘You Have Exactly 18 Days and 44 Minutes’ to Return the Loot
The company issued an ultimatum to the beer bandits.
Call it The Great Beer Heist of 2026. Thieves took off with 40,000 pounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, roughly 50,000 cans, from a distribution center in Montclair, California. Now, Pabst wants it back on a very specific timeline.
Police say about $25,000 worth of product was taken after a fake subcontracting company submitted fraudulent paperwork to arrange a pickup on August 17, the New York Times reports. Four days later, Pabst took to social media with a countdown. “Pabst is officially starting the clock now. You have exactly 18 days and 44 minutes to return our truck, no questions asked,” the company wrote. “P.S., this is real and we are deadly serious.”
Pabst kept the bit going, later posting, “We get it. But can have our truck back? Please.”
Just one rub: The Montclair Police Department says “no trucks were stolen. Just the cargo.” Pabst eventually acknowledged the mix-up, clarifying it didn’t actually own the truck, just the beer inside it.
This isn’t an isolated incident, either for Pabst or the industry. A separate shipment from the same distribution center, worth about $45,000 and bound for Tucson, Arizona, also went missing the same day, and police are investigating if the two thefts are connected. Food and beverage cargo theft has been on the rise nationally. Thieves recently made off with $400,000 worth of KitKat bars in one incident, and 1,000 racks of Shake Shack baby back ribs in another. California had the highest cargo theft risk in the country last quarter, and national losses from cargo theft hit $725 million last year, up 60% from 2024.
Despite the odds of getting their brew back, Pabst is undeterred. It wrote in a follow-up post: “Beer is getting warmer, trail is getting colder. Clock’s still ticking.”
Call it The Great Beer Heist of 2026. Thieves took off with 40,000 pounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, roughly 50,000 cans, from a distribution center in Montclair, California. Now, Pabst wants it back on a very specific timeline.
Police say about $25,000 worth of product was taken after a fake subcontracting company submitted fraudulent paperwork to arrange a pickup on August 17, the New York Times reports. Four days later, Pabst took to social media with a countdown. “Pabst is officially starting the clock now. You have exactly 18 days and 44 minutes to return our truck, no questions asked,” the company wrote. “P.S., this is real and we are deadly serious.”
Pabst kept the bit going, later posting, “We get it. But can have our truck back? Please.”
