Bitchell's Screwery - It leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth

Oh My God!
AM I GLAD I KEEP COPIES OF ALL E-MAILS!!!!

Prior to our sojourn to Knysna, and being somewhat of a control freak, I decided to send an e-mail to Mitchell's Knysna Brewery - after having visited their website. I did NOT want to miss this tour!

Herewith their courteous reply:

"Hi

Thank you for your email, we look forward to welcoming you to our special brewery. Below please find our tour and tasting information:

Our daily tour times are 10:30 &15:00 on weekdays only. Tastings can be done from 08:30 - 16:30 Mon - Fri and 09:30 - 12:30 on a Saturday.
Special tour times can be arranged for groups of four and more. The price for the tour and tasting is R 50.00 pp and a tasting only is R30.00 pp. Children under twelve years of age tour for free.

The tour normally takes 15-20 minutes and the tasting will depend on
a) the tasting option you choose
and
b) the time you have available to spend here.

The tasting can be done one of two ways: you can have a tasting glass of each beer or you can have a small taste of each beer and enjoy a pint of your favourite in our lovely beer garden.

Please give us a quick call before you come to check availability, we would hate to turn you away because we don't have space.

Regards,

Renée de Bruyn

Mitchells Knysna Brewery
044 382 4685
086 6841326 (F)
"
And so we decided that this was a MUST-SEE experience.
I, for one, adore my beer.
This experience was NOT TO BE MISSED.

We arrived 3 minutes 20 seconds late for the tour - which they had very kindly delayed for us - since we had called ahead (twice) to confirm our imminent arrival.

There were (if I can recall correctly) 8 people in our group.

I was going to do the R50.00 TASTING tour. The two other people in my party had opted to only do the R30.00 tour - the one sans the tasting.

The tour was fucking boring.

The tour guide was boring too.

Her name escapes me - but it was possibly Reneé. The same person who replied to my initial e-mail.

At the end of the fucking boring 15 minute tour, I chose to NOT do the tasting.
Something that the Tour Guide had said had been so distasteful, so nauseating, that I did not want to stomach their product.

To summarise: The shelf life of Mitchell's beer (or certain of their products) is 21 days. Old stock is returned to their factory - and is replaced by them at no additional cost to the distributors / merchants. All very eco-conscious.
The "old" stock is then "sold to the local guys @ a reduced price".
While I am certain that there is very little wrong with the OLD stock - what I want to know is: WHO THE FUCK ARE THE "LOCAL GUYS"?????

Are they the factory workers - the brewery is in an industrial area - and are Mitchell's therefore promoting alcoholism amongst the factory workers?
Or is Mitchell's encouraging alcohol dependency amongst the factory managers and owners? Are the "LOCAL GUYS" the previously disadvantaged men in the Knysna area. Is Mitchell's destroying neighbourhoods?

Is Mitchell's returning to the dop system?

Or do the wealthy male inhabitants of Thesen Island - where house prices range from R3 million to R9 million - stand in queues outside the Mitchell's shebeen - waiting to buy old product.
Is it these "local guys" - these financially independent men - that you were referring to?

I, quite frankly, do not give a fuck which GROUP of "local guys" you are referring to. Your comment was distasteful. It was wrong. Racist. Demeaning. Appalling. Disgusting.
You fucked up.
And I still have this terrible taste in my mouth.

As for the "certificate" we were all presented with upon our premature departure. I am returning it via ordinary mail. And I want my fucking R30.00 (I did NOT do the tasting part of the tour - so enraged was I - and so I got a discounted rate) back.


My friends also want their money back.