40,000 pounds of PBR remain missing after California theft

Two fraudulent pickups at an Inland Empire warehouse turned into $70,000 in missing PBR — and a very online ransom clock from the brand itself.

Somebody walked into an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair, California last week, said the right words to the right person, and drove off with a semi-load of Pabst Blue Ribbon. No broken glass, no masked men, no hijacked rig on a highway like a Hollywood movie. Just paperwork that looked real enough to work.

Here’s what actually happened, because it seems the folks that only read headlines have a skewed version of what could be the biggest beer theft in history.

Two beer pick-ups, one warehouse

On Monday, Aug. 17, two separate cargo pickups went out from the Anheuser-Busch facility at 4545 Brooks Street -about 35 miles east of downtown LA and neither made it to their destination.

Around 10 a.m., a shipment worth roughly $45,000 headed for Tucson disappeared. About an hour later, a company that had no business picking up anything beer or otherwise, used fake documentation to walk out with another $25,000 in Anheuser-Busch and PBR product, this one reportedly bound for San Diego. Montclair PD says the paperwork from both pickups shared enough odd overlaps including trucking company, driver info, vehicle details Investigators are now working the theory it was the same operation running the same play twice in one morning.

Combined value: about $70,000. As of Aug. 31, there are no suspects and nothing has been recovered.

The 40,000-pound number, explained

Most of the coverage has repeated “40,000 pounds of beer,” which is the San Diego-bound haul, the one Pabst has actually made public. A police report cited by the Los Angeles Times breaks it down to the case:

That’s 145 barrels, roughly 4,500 gallons, and a beer-only weight around 39,264 pounds – about 40,049 with pallets and separators factored in. Not 50,000 cans, but headlines are headlines.

Beer Theft. Not Truck Theft.

The stolen truck isn’t a stolen truck. Headline: “PBR truck stolen” isn’t accurate. Nobody stole a truck. Pabst doesn’t own the truck. What happened is what the FBI would call strategic cargo theft. Someone posed as the legitimate carrier scheduled to pick up the beer, and the warehouse handed it over because the documents checked out. California accounted for roughly a third of all reported U.S. cargo theft in Q2 2026, per reporting tied to this case, so this isn’t exactly rare. It’s just this time, it’s beer.

Montclair PD had to say this publicly, in writing, after Pabst’s own social posts framed it as a stolen truck: “We are working this case, but no trucks were stolen. Just the cargo.” Pabst has since walked that language back too.

Pabst’s response is very Pabst.

Pabst went public with the theft even before police did with an Instagram post on Aug. 21-22 announcing “STOLEN – 40,000lbs of beer” over a photo of a PBR truck the company admits isn’t even the actual truck, “because we can’t find that one.” Then came the marketing fun: a return window of exactly 18 days and 44 minutes, a nod to the brewery’s 1844 founding, with no questions asked, plus an undisclosed reward. CBS Los Angeles has reported that reward could be worth half the beer’s value if it comes back safe, though Pabst seemingly hasn’t confirmed that amount.

PBR doing PBR stuff.

As of August 31st

Montclair PD is still working it. No arrests, no recovered product, and the department didn’t put out its own statement until more than a week after the theft, but Pabst got there first. Anyone with information on the incidents, the vehicles, the driver, or the delivery company involved is asked to call the tip line at 909-621-4771.

Either way, a lot of beer is missing and the thief or thieves might be too drunk to care at this point.

Figures reflect public reporting as of Aug. 31, 2026. Investigation ongoing.