HOUSTON -- With the price of metal skyrocketing, thieves are getting more and more creative in their search for scrap metal. This time, though, its breweries that are paying the price as the thieves are targeting beer kegs.

Part of the reason people pay a deposit to get a keg of beer is so that the stainless steel container will be returned.

At the St. Arnold Brewery in northwest Houston, there are about 5,000 steel kegs stacked in the warehouse. The brewer's Brock Wagner said he'd have more, but about five percent never come back.

That number is increasing because the price of stainless steel has more than doubled in the last few years. A beer keg could be worth about $30 to a thief.

It costs the brewery $150 to replace the stolen keg.

“Suddenly, it created this giant bull's-eye on kegs for people going, ‘Ohh, I can make some money by taking these over to scrap yards,'” said Wagner.

That is if the scrap metal recyclers will take them.

“It's not worth the aggravation if they are stolen,” said Dennis Laviage, the owner of C&D Scrap Metal in the Heights. “I'm not surprised anymore with any metal.”

He has a sign posted out front that the company won't pay you in $2 bills for the kegs. With 100 scrap metal businesses in Houston, there are plenty who will take them even though it's against the law.

In an unusual case of what goes around comes around: “So people are probably taking these kegs, selling them to scrap yards. (They are) being melted down to stainless steel the keg manufacturer is buying back to make more kegs,” said Wagner. “It's a vicious cycle.”