My homebrew club organized a 25-person visit (about an hour away) to Victory and an "exclusive" brewer's tour, followed by lunch on our own. We arrived in a school bus about 30 minutes before opening and waited in the parking lot.
Several members brought some of their beer to share with the group and sample. Since we couldn't get in the brewery right away, about 5-6 members had their samples in Solo cups and were discussing beer on the bus in the parking lot.
At about 11:30, we were "greeted" by a manager who immediately said no one was allowed in because he saw people drinking on the bus and they don't allow "pregaming". In particular myself and another club officer "smelled like beer". Was I drinking yes, were we drunk at 11am, no. Not to mention I was cleaning up a carboy explosion minutes before leaving on the trip. But I digress, our arguments that we won't be driving (see rented bus) or asking if there was a "cool down" period were shot down. Alas, when the floor manager came out to back up her cohort, she realized that we hadn't yet paid for our tour so they begrudgingly let us in...but absolutely NO drinking once inside.
We paid for the exclusive brewers tour, but our tour guide wasn't a brewer at all. In fact the first words out of the tour guides mouth were "I work in the gift shop, so I don't know about brewing. I do know the ABV and prices!"
After our lackluster tour we were escorted to the dining area, although the place was largely empty, they refused to let us use more than 4 tables...which we did not all fit at. So a few of us had to sit at the bar....oh yeah they said we are allowed to drink now. About half way through lunch, one of our more sober members was ejected. We were never given an explained. At that time we cut our visit to victory about 3 hours short without filling our ~30 growlers, packed up and headed to Iron Hill West Chester. Upon arrival they were more than happy to take care of our entire group. In fact the bartender at IH's response to Victory was "Those guy's are dicks".
We already had somewhat of a bad impression of Victory based on a few members previous trips to the brewery and the fact that they refused to donate to our clubs homebrew day (not saying because they didn't we dont like them, but every other brewery in the area had no problem) Overall, the staff was discourteous and flat out rude at some points and at no time did we feel welcomed or even like customers. The best business decision Victory made of late was to curtail brewery tours (effective July 4) -- that will significantly reduce the public's exposure to perhaps the worst customer service and we're-better-than-you attitudes that I've encountered in quite some time.
