Victory Beer Blog

Life in a growing American brewery

Sixteen Sweet Years of Victory

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 1:01am

By Bill Covaleski

Sixteen years ago today, Victory Brewing Company was born, so to speak. With the opening of our doors on this day (February 15, 1996) that we officially began operations. Today, as we celebrate the sweetness of 16 years in business, we take a moment to reflect on where we started.

Our desire to start a brewery was born years before VBC ever opened. In fact, our original business plan, which sits beside me on my desk as I type this, was dated June 1994. I’ve kept this plan to remind me of our idealism and as a reminder that critics aren’t always right. With the only wealth we had being brewing experience gained in Germany and 5 years of industry work, we were desperate for dollars to start our business, and we naturally turned to family and friends to include them in our dream. One of the first potential investors we identified was an older cousin of mine who had parlayed his accounting degree into quite a successful career for himself. When the plan was returned to me, without a check, he had penned various comments all over this very copy, all of which were negative. Some of which were helpful.

The best comment of them all? “Don’t like this. Is B******t!” Very constructive.

The main criticism from him as a prospective investor was that Ron and I had no experience running a business. But wait! We left out an important fact. Ron and I had months of Junior Achievement in 1979 to fall back on!

During our time at the mentored business experience, Ron took on the role of CEO for our faux business. I took on the role of disinterested employee. Either way, Ron had executive experience. See photographic proof:

But none of this impressed my cousin enough to invest in Victory.

As I scan back through the original business plan, ignoring the nay-saying scribbles, I am pleased that much of our initial vision has come to fruition in our sixteen years

Even back in 1994, we noted that our competitive advantages would come from the ingredients we use and the techniques we employ. That remains true today. The imported malt and whole flower hops we use today are the same stellar ingredients we proposed as we were getting started. In 16 years of business, we are proud to say that we have never compromised on quality in favor of price.

Some of the most significant developments we’ve made since opening in 1996, make where we started seem almost laughable.

As we got started with Victory Brewing Company, the entire business consisted of just Ron and me. We did every job. We were the brewers, book keepers, marketers and delivery drivers.

“Initially, Victory Brewing Company’s products will be distributed by either of our two Brewmasters and principals, Ron Barchet and Bill Covaleski. Allowing us to forge close links with our retailers and gain customer insight, we feel this is the proper approach to take.”
~ The 1994 Business Plan

Today we have more than 200 employees, people who shouldered the burden that has spectacularly outgrown two elementary school friends.

Not only did we start with just two employees but with just one email address. Drink@victorybeer.com was registered to receive all email for the company in 1997. At the time, we couldn’t understand why a beer business would need to receive email and we certainly wouldn’t need more than one address for such things!

Today, we embrace our web presence and the ability to digitally connect with our audience through email, Twitter, Facebook, texts and soon, an app! This profusion of digital communications options is making me feel old.

Ron and I are proud of the success we’ve achieved and humbled by the dedicated fans who have provided the critical support that our crazy beer notions needed to survive. Though we don’t drive the delivery trucks anymore, we still believe in forging close links with our retailers and customers. We welcome your comments via social media and love answering the questions you submit to us at brewmaster@victorybeer.com.

While many 16-year-olds are hoping for car keys on their birthdays, we are grasping tightly to the keys we already have – the keys to our success that we developed back in 1994. So far, so good.

 

It’s T-shirt Time Again!

Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 9:00am

The Fab 15 t-shirt for October features the logo from our newest beer, Victory Otto Ale, which was also released on Oct. 15. The beer, a Belgian-style dubbel, is made with smoked malt. That shadowy figure you see in the background is St. Otto of Bamberg, the town in Germany that is home to rauchbier (or smoked beer).

Get your T-shirt in our retail shop or online, and wear it while you’re enjoying a glass of the Victory Otto Ale.

September T-Shirt is Here

Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 11:44am

Our September T-shirt highlights the four simple ingredients that go into the delicious beverage we know as Victory beer — clean water from the Brandywine Creek, whole flower hops, the best quality malt and more than 40 different strains of yeast.

Get yours here, and look for another new T-shirt on the 15th of October.

 

-K.H.

June T-shirt

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 1:26pm

This month, we pledge our allegiance to Victory beer on the June T-shirt. Wear it and show your pride in delicious, quality  beer. (And with that patriotic look, wouldn’t this just be perfect to wear to all your Independence Day barbecues? Hint, hint.)

Check back here in a month, for our next t-shirt release.

 

- K.H.

Fifteen Years Of Character(s)

Monday, February 21, 2011 at 9:27pm

Flame-throwing grills, ex-brewers claiming the glory, a dismissive landlord and ‘touchy’ pals who can barely control themselves… who knew that Victory could survive such a tumultuous first fifteen years!? But outside of the glorious chaos that typifies new businesses of all types, there is a groundswell of love and respect voiced by the ‘Characters’ that have lent their voice to telling the story of Victory’s first fifteen years of operation.

See and hear it here, in Fifteen Years Of Character(s), the video we commissioned to celebrate our recent anniversary on February 15.

Recognizing that we simply make beer, and that it is your patrons and supporters who make a business a success, we chose to let a few of those other folks shed light on some of the untold stories of Victory.

Enjoy!

Bill & Ron, the Brewmasters of Victory



Beer Inspired Baking

Friday, February 4, 2011 at 7:40pm

Blueprints are common at Victory…but for a cake!

Chef Lynn Tilyou of Victory Brewing Company suffers from insomnia. This paired with her past career helping her mother as a cake decorator, and our 15 year anniversary on the horizon, has given the midnight creative spark, that led to this bold undertaking. The 15th Anniversary cake is a live motion replica of the brewing process, and will include many of the steps, from brewing to pouring beer into a pitcher. Don’t miss this sweet concoction and creative madness that abounds here in our brewery restaurant on February 15th when we’ll celebrate ’15 Years of Character’. We’ll kick things off at 5pm with the first pour of our new brand Headwaters Pale Ale. Click here for event details and to read more about the anniversary celebration.

Being Here

Friday, January 28, 2011 at 4:01pm

 

The heartfelt feeling of an empty Victory case out for recycling.If you weren’t one of the lucky 32 who witnessed the first broadcast of our 2011 State Of The Brewery address, well, click here to view it, but treat yourself to this ‘inside info’ before you do so.

We wrapped our question and answer session of the State Of The Brewery address with questions posed by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Greg Koch of Stone Brewery. Greg asked, “How does it feel going from scrappy microbrewers cum biscuit factory rehabbers to relative pillars of your community and, arguably by some, respectable members of society? All at the hand of tasty beer and a company with one foot in the old world, and the other foot on the cutting edge?”

Not an easy one to answer but as much of life goes, fate primed and prepared me for the question, just days before. As it was, I arrived to work last week to witness this just outside our brewery office doors. Now, nothing warms my heart more than to see an emptied case of Victory beer waiting to be recycled. I love the fact that the glass will become glass again, the paper will become paper again, AND the fact that someone was compelled by their great taste to buy our great beer.

This moment was especially heartwarming as over the 15 years here, Ron and I have suffered the grave injustices of walking past empty cases of Honey Brown, Miller Light, Harp Lager (more expensive and more travelled than Victory Lager, for God’s sake!!) and other weak facsimiles of beer strewn along Acorn Lane as we walk into work. But now we routinely see empty Prima Pils and HopDevil Ale cases who have lived the full life. But this, V Twelve, the most luxurious and commanding of our brews, was a beam of golden light from heaven, here on earth. It spoke ‘they get it’, in comforting and familiar tones to me.

I remember when they didn’t get it. When a host of future neighbors filled the municipal hall of Downingtown to protest our proposed zoning variance to build a restaurant within our brewery. It was April of 1995 and as we cheaped out on a real attorney for the proceedings, I had to put a suit on and pay an wholly unprepared stooge to frame our side in simpleton terms. And then get attacked. The minutes of that hearing show that I faced fire and fears of drunks antagonizing local children, speeding as they launch beer bottles all over neighbors’ lawns. Understandably, what is unknown is often feared. What Ron and I knew was that brewpubs could be great magnets for community culture and family entertainment and mirth. We just hoped to prove that our brewpub could be these things.

Oddly, neither ‘side’ of that April debate had malice in their hearts. It was more like we simply didn’t get introduced in the best of conditions. So I tried my best to persuade with reason, and not compromise, and we were awarded the variance to establish our brewpub.

Flashing forward those 16 intervening years, Ron and I and the Victory crew now find ourselves respected within this community. It’s not the cheap, fleeting admiration bestowed upon an American Idol contestant, but a far more worthy connection to our community based on the reality that we strive, day in and day out, to produce things our community has come to value. Things like a warmingly rich, Belgian ale or an addictively stimulating plate of hot wings. These are things of value that make for enduring relationships and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to provide them.

Greg, these ‘pillars’ are made of chicken wings and beer, oddly enough.

Cheers, – Bill

 

Victory Turns 15!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 6:15pm

Emerging from true obscurity in a truly obscure location, we’ve had 15 years (almost) to demonstrate our character here at Victory. Early on we debuted the brazen beast known as HopDevil. This menacingly delicious little ruffian assaulted folks’ sensibilities with a heady, citrusy hop bite tempered with a comforting resolution of rich, German malts and served notice that east coast IPAs had arrived with style. Against the pleas of our few wholesalers in 1997, who correctly recognized that pilsners were misunderstood and generally lame at the time in the US, we stubbornly rolled a new era pils, Prima, and have gained fans and acclaim steadily since with this appealing, crisp quencher. At 10 years we introduced a strong altbier, bright with brassy, German hops that was a deliciously round peg that defied any convenient square hole with our Ten Years Alt.

But innovation needs an appreciative audience and therefore none of these beers could have achieved their destiny, to be loved, if it were not for the characters consuming these exciting brews. We are talking about you. You are one of our characters, a player in this story of craft brewing risk and reward.

So, mindful that our family includes you as much as the characters we’ve developed in HopDevil, Golden Monkey, St. Victorious, etc. we look to celebrate our ’15 Years Of Character’ with all of those who have contributed greatly to the success of Victory.

Starting on February 15, our fifteenth anniversary, we’ll kick off a year of events nationwide, that celebrate our past 15 years together. Join us at Victory on Feb. 15 to witness the first screening of ‘Fifteen Years Of Character(s)’ our video homage to the fans of Victory. Hear the Victory stories of fans and friends like Greg Koch of Stone Brewing and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in this video. That night we’ll pepper our hot, new February menu with some favorite menu items from the past 15 years of Victory, demonstrating the deliciously creative ways that our staff has captured your imagination.

You’ll find Brewmasters Bill & Ron here that evening as well, signing commemorative posters and celebrating your contribution to Victory’s success. Regarding our 15th year, Ron commented, “Nice, six more years before I can enjoy a Victory beer!” To which, Bill added, “Excellent, we can act like we’re 15 for a solid year now!

Let Your Freak Flags Fly

Friday, January 14, 2011 at 7:55pm

The restored 1996 HopDevil shirt returns Jan. 15 for a limited time.

This one’s for Jerry. And everyone like myself and Jerry who already has one of these shirts. But it was Jerry who first brought the idea up, so like our Jerk Grinder that he also loves so much, we must see this shirt live on.

My art files say that this design was created May 31, 1996, when HopDevil was an infant, pretty much unknown to the world. The fact that we could dress him up in purple, of all colors, splashed with neon green, magenta and black definitely states that this beer was something unique and special. So wonderful and special, that grown men were willing to part with our hard-earned money to walk around in a purple, magenta and neon green shirt bearing the visage of the ale we loved.

Then, years after the purchase and countless beer festivals and outdoor chores, we suffer the scorn of our wives who thought that such a faded, threadbare relic should have been in the trash long ago. No, we clung to our purple HopDevil shirt like the adult version of a baby blanket that somehow embodied our transition from partying, craft beer newbie to seasoned father dealing with teenagers in our households.

So here he is again, in all of his purple glory, to support his old and tired brother in the closet.

Gentlemen, let your freak flags fly!

This HopDevil throwback shirt is the second in our series of 15 Fashionable Finds in celebration of our 15th Anniversary. This and all anniversary shirts will be available for sale on the 15th of each month. You can buy in our retail store or from our online store. But hurry, because there are only a limited quantity available.



Feast Your Eyes on the 1st of 15

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 4:26pm

 1st of 15 Limited Tshirts | Savor Your Victory

Earlier this month we announced that to celebrate our 15th Anniversary in February we’d be releasing 15 Victorious fashionable finds. Just released is the first of 15 tshirts that will debut (typically) the 15th of each month. Savor the holidays in this limited edition t-shirt available in mens and womens sizes. Available in Victory Retail and online this t-shirt is just $10 so get yours today!


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