Dogfish Head Brewery Tours 2014

Hello y’all -- First of all, to CraftBeerTastic, I’m really sorry you didn’t get a chance to check out the new warehouse and bottling line. It really bums me out when someone leaves here unhappy, and it’s especially painful when it’s someone who supports us and craft beer as much as you do.

I spent a good chunk of time this morning reading this thread and discussing it with co-workers. Just yesterday, we had an hour meeting on the subject of continually improving the tour system without even knowing this thread existed. In fact, it’s something we’ve wrestled with for about three years as more and more people come to visit our Milton brewery. The feedback here -- both the kind feedback that lets us know what we are doing right and the critical feedback about where we could improve -- are super helpful. It’s heartwarming to hear from so many folks who have taken the time to come visit us at our source. We’re very proud of our world-class facility and we love to show it off.

Dogfish Head is in coastal Delaware, and it’s a blessing and a curse to be in such a busy tourist destination. We get a lot of visitors (many beer geeks, but also lots of curious beach-goers looking for a fun day), and the crowds tend to get concentrated around weekends, holidays and bad weather. So, about a dozen or so times a year — during a perfect storm of tourist season and an overcast weekend day — our first-come, first-serve tours get jammed up and some people leave disappointed. The other 260+ days a year that we give tours, that system works like a charm.

So, what to do? Should we go back to scheduling free tours? Well, that came with its own problems. We had a ton of no-shows, and we had a lot of people booking their group on three different tours because they weren’t sure when they’d show up. Neither of those is fair to folks who log on to book a tour and find them all booked. Charging money for tours would fix those two problems, but that kind of goes against everything we think a brewery tour should be.

Believe me, our intention is not to keep people off tours so we can funnel them to our shop, as someone suggested. As many of you know, we don’t do a lot of advertising (besides craft beer pubs like BeerAdvocate and Draft that we want to support). Our success — and the success of craft beer in general — is built on the support of you guys and others who spread the word about small indie brewers. A happy guest who goes home and tells his friends about Dogfish is way more important to us than a T-shirt sale.

So, if you can think of a creative solution to this problem, please share it here. We’d love for every guest to leave our brewery with a big smile on their face. Respect Beer, and respect indie breweries who are trying very hard to make their tours as enjoyable for as many guests as we can. Thanks — sam

 

That's a great point people may have missed. I know when I visited with a large group of 15 people back in 2010, we based our visit on when we could book an open Saturday date. It would be frustrating to know that some of the "sold out" dates weren't really full.

 

I am a tour guide at Tröegs so I understand the behind the scenes issues. I think the new system make perfect sense for your situation! I look forward to taking a tour in the future. DFH was also my first brewery tour. That was at the original location, maybe 12 years ago? It has been a pleasure to watch you grow over the years!

 

Given what Sam said maybe it would be best to give the brewery a call in advance to see if they are experiencing one of their high volume days. I don't want to speak for DFH, but I would imagine they would rather take a few phone calls than have people show up and be upset they couldn't get a tour.

@SamCalagione I actually do have a recommendation that's sort of a hybrid of both online registrations and walk-ins. How about online reservations for half of the tour spots, for people like @CraftBeerTastic, and fill in the other half of the tour spots with walk-ins. If people don't show up for their scheduled tour they lose their spot to a walk-in. It gives everyone a chance and people know what to expect when they get there. I got the idea from how the US Dept of Interior's Bureau of Land Management handles hiking permits for some US public lands and monuments with limited public access. For example, Coyote Buttes in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument [in Utah] is a very popular hiking destination and they only issue 20 hiking permits per day. Ten of those permits are available through an online lottery and 10 of the permits are available first-come-first-serve on the morning you want to hike.

 

Something I am personally glad to see still there is the mechanical steam punk vulture. No joke. Keep on Keepin' on Sam. can't wait to get down again and tour the new additions.

 

I also came here to say what @Ranbot and @John_M said. A hybrid reservation system where 1/2 of the spots are reservation only and 1/2 are walk ins would allow those who are driving a good distance to know they will get on a tour, and give the chance to those just casually dropping by to get lucky and be able to get on a tour.
The other option is to split up the tour day where reservation tours are at 10, 12, 2 and 4 and walk in tours are at 11, 1,3, and 5pm. (Or you could do this on a daily basis where reservation tours are on Mon., Wed., Friday and walk ins on Tues, Thurs, Saturday). This way everyone gets a chance.
And to the problem of people making reservations and not showing, maybe take a $5 deposit at the time of reservation. Those that show never have their CC charged. Those that don't show, lose their deposit. This way the tour is still free as we all know Sam wants to keep them, but if you're inconsiderate enough to not let DFH know you can't make it, you lose your deposit.
Either way, we all appreciate @SamCalagione listening. DFH is a world class brewery and I am sure they will figure out this tour issue. (Hopefully before my trip to Rehoboth in a few weeks). Either way I will be stopping by the Brewpub for a flight or 2 and coming home with some Peanut Butter Vodka.

 

@SamCalagione Would it be possible to do a combination of the two systems? Weekday and dead of winter months keep it as is with the new system. Perhaps summer weekends go back to the online booking system. It sucks to charge for tours, but perhaps charge small enough fee $1 per person where the money goes to one of the many charities Dogfish Head supports, Nature Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity etc.

 

I like the idea of tour fees going to charity. I think Sam Adams gives all their tour fees to a local charity (or they did when I went years ago). However I would allow the visitor to choose which charity their tour fee supports and have some very eclectic charity options. You don't want a customer to feel like they are forced to give money to something they don't want to support.