Victory Brewing’s Original Name: Independence Brewing & Other Fun Anniversary Facts

Still, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses for our co-founders Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet—there were some epic-tale-worthy stops along the way. But through it all there was always laughter, fun and loads of memory-making good times. It continues to be all that and more as we celebrate 20 tasty years and look to many, many more. Grab a behind-the-scenes peek into what’s made us victorious for the past two decades.

20 Random Tales as Told by Bill and Ron

1. Our original name was Independence Brewing Company, which we inevitably learned was already taken. The fact that they had legal counsel sent us running back to the drawing board. That minor speed bump galvanized us to rally around what would become our brand: “Victory.”

Bill serving customers at the original bar

2. Being a brewery, we expected our bottling line to be in place when the doors opened, right? Fate had different plans, and that project was delayed by almost six months. Our business model was to sell draft and packaged beer, so it was challenging to keep up with revenue expectations when flying with one wing. As it turns out, the lack of a bottling line kept us from bottling at nights after our brewing days, freeing us up to enjoy the company of our customers in our restaurant. And it was totally worth it. Those conversations provided us with great insights on how to nurture and grow our business.

3. It was a dark and snowy night when we brewed our first beer, Festbier. Seriously, it was December 1995 and by the time we were done quite a bit of snow had fallen. We were clueless about the impending storm because we were pretty excited to be in our new brewhouse. At one point, we noticed the contractors were finishing up to leave earlier than expected because of some snowstorm they’d heard about. We turned on a radio and heard about the storm—and knew what we had to do. Our fermenting tanks required a certain volume to reach the internal temperature probe, and just one Festbier batch wouldn’t reach the level necessary to initiate the fermentation cooling system. We needed to ensure that the batch would be temperature controlled in case the storm prevented us from getting back the next day; otherwise, our first beer would have spoiled. So we soldiered on and made two batches, then found our way home during the wee hours on snowy, empty roads. It turns out we didn’t make it back the next day, but the fermentation temperature control system did kick in. The easy way out would have been to delay our opening—but we looked at adversity as an opportunity and persevered. That was definitely a victory!

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