Guinness Gone? Police Warn Pub Owners of 70,000 Pints of Stolen Stout After Getaway Trailers Were Found

Thieves stole about 70,000 pints of Guinness worth an estimated £115,000 in a planned raid on a depot in Runcorn, Cheshire, on Bank Holiday Monday, August 31, prompting police to warn pubs and businesses to be on the lookout for cut‑price stout.

The beer, equivalent to roughly 880 barrels, was taken from a storage site on Aston Lane. Two HGV trailers used in the theft were also stolen, bringing the total value of the missing beer and vehicles to about £205,000.

Cheshire Police are appealing to pubs and businesses to report anyone offering to sell large quantities of Guinness without a clear source.

400 Barrels Loaded in 10 Minutes

Police believe the theft involved two separate HGVs arriving at the Whitehouse Industrial Estate within a short period. At about 7.45pm on August 31, a truck cab entered the site and was used to collect a white, three-axle curtain-sided trailer. The trailer was carrying about 400 barrels of Guinness.

The truck left roughly ten minutes later and travelled towards the Mersey Gateway bridge. A second truck cab arrived at the depot at about 9.12pm. It collected the remaining trailer, which was also loaded with Guinness, and left around 15 minutes later.

That vehicle travelled towards Rainhill and Watkinson Way. The two trailers were later found abandoned, but the Guinness had been removed.

Trailers Recovered, Stout Still Missing

Police found the first trailer on Hall Lane in Lathom, near Skelmersdale, at about 3.05am on Tuesday, September 1. The second was recovered from Gillibrands Road shortly after midday on Wednesday, September 2, at about 12.07pm. Both locations are roughly 30 miles from the Runcorn depot.

The stolen trailers are described as white, tri-axle, curtain-sided units with GXO branding on the side curtains and rear doors. Their identification numbers are displayed in the upper-left corner of the rear doors. The first trailer is marked DL736 and the second DL542.

Police Appeal to Pub Owners

Cheshire Police believe the stolen beer may be offered for resale and are asking pub owners and businesses to be cautious of unexpected offers involving large quantities of Guinness. Detectives are also appealing for information about two men believed to have driven the stolen HGVs.

One is described as a white man with a short, dark beard who was wearing a beanie or knitted hat. The second was reportedly wearing a cap.

Police are separately trying to identify the occupants of a silver or white Renault Captur fitted with learner plates.

Officers believe the vehicle was caught up in the movements of the second HGV as it was being used to leave the stolen trailer on Gillibrands Road.

The Captur's occupants may have seen the HGV driver at close range and police want to speak to them.

Guinness Raid in Wider Theft Context

The scale of the theft sits against a longer-term decline in recorded theft offences in England and Wales. The total number of police-recorded theft offences has roughly halved over the past two decades, falling from nearly 3.41 million in 2002/03 to approximately 1.64 million in 2025/26.

Overall recorded crime in England and Wales also fell by 1% in 2024 and remains more than 75% below its peak in the mid-1990s. Recent trends have been less consistent, however. Shoplifting has reached an all-time high, with about 530,640 offences recorded, passing half a million for the first time.

Theft from the person, including offences such as pickpocketing and mobile phone snatching, also rose by 22% in a single year to more than 152,000 recorded offences. The Guinness theft involves a different scale and type of offending, but it comes alongside that recent increase in theft of physical goods.