BARRELS OF BEER BROACHED

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 299, 14 September 1937, Page 12

BARRELS OF BEER BROACHED

Theft From Railway Truck at Hastings Dominion Special Service. Hastings, September 13. A strong smell of beer in the vicinity of a railway wagon standing in the Hastings Railway Station early this morning led to prompt investigations by a porter, who found beef trickling through the doors of the wagon. On further investigation it was revealed that the door of the wagon had been forced and three barrels of beer broached. It was impossible to say how much beer was drunk or taken awuy, for <r good deal of it ran to waste, but one barrel was about half empty. The .beer was consigned from Dunedin to tlio Carlton Club Hotel, Hastings. It w,i s stated to-day by an authority that the joke was really on the thieves, as the beer they took was quite unfit to drink. When beer was put into casks at the brewery, he said, it was treated with brewers’ crystals so that it would work, and before being sold over the bar it had to stop working and settle down. Even then, the beer was n °t ready f° r consumption, for it had to stand a further week to allow the sediment to settle and the liquid to clear. “It would taste like poison,” he said, with a smile. “I know of nothing else that has such an awful taste as that beer would have. They’ll remember it all.their lives.”