if you could only

TRILLIUM vs Tree House Pro's and Cons
1. Yes, Tree House has the best beer in Julius and the best stouts. However, Trillium has more heavyweight caliber beer…..for American Pale Ales, Trillium is the best in the WORLD!!!! TH not even close. For IPA/DIPA it's close, but once again Trillium offers more IPA's/DIPA's than TH.

2. The can line at TH is awesome!! super fast!! But so is the bottle line at Trillium!!!

3. The growler line is atrocious at TH…super long (1 hour to 2 hours) and time consuming with literally nothing to do as you are waiting (bring a book). The growler line at Trillium takes anywhere from 1 to 30 minutes (usually around 10 minutes). Also, Trillium will allow you to switch out your growlers for FREE (32 oz for a new 32 oz or a 64 oz).

4. Convenience wise TH is better as they have a large parking lot and relatively zero traffic heading west on the pike (or wherever you come from). Trillium is in Boston, but isn't in a clustered area of the city. With Trillium, your best bet is to park in the Stillings Street Garage...located directly across from the brewery ($5 for 30 minutes, $10 for one hour). Traffic can get backed up especially during the noon time rush or the 2:30-6 after work rush. It's best to arrive later on in order to avoid traffic.

OVERALL: You can decide for yourself which is better…..tomorrow i'll be at TH getting some more Double Shot as it is phenomenal and next week i'll be back at Trillium to stock up on some more hoppy, juicy pale ales!!!!

 

Strange to see a list like that where cost isn't considered.

 

Probably just as much as "2. The can line at TH is awesome!! super fast!! But so is the bottle line at Trillium!!!"

Your list is "TRILLIUM vs Tree House Pro's and Cons". I simply expressed my surprise that cost wouldn't be a consideration in such a list.

 

Prices for TH are on their site….Trillium bottle (25 oz.) prices range from $8 to $12 with tax… 32 oz. growler fills are the same as the bottle prices, but without tax….64 oz fills are $15 to $23. Both breweries have comparable prices.

 

Depends on what you consider comparable prices. You said

If you were to spend 60 dollars at TH, you could either get 240 ounces of Julius in growler format, or 256 ounces in canned. If you were to spend 60 dollars on Congress Street at Trillium, however, you'd receive 150 ounces (plus paying for parking). You may consider that comparable, but many would consider that substantial.

 

I think you reversed your Julius calculations (should be 240 ounces in canned and 256 in growlers). In any event, this is an unfair comparison because you are comparing Trillium bottle pricing to Tree House growler pricing (and more recently cans). If you look at apples to apples (growlers), they are comparable. I think it might take $64 to get your 256 ounces of Congress Street in growlers (not positive on this as I don't fill 64 oz growlers often), but it is close, and if you look at fill prices for 64 ounce growlers across their beers, I think "comparable" is a pretty fair statement. Similarly, Trillium's 32 ounce growler fills and Tree House's 750ml growler fills are pretty much "comparable" on a per ounce basis, across their beers.

Where Trillium is more expensive is with their bottles, which is the one Trillium format you used in your example. Although I generally am the last one to defend this pricing (both breweries actually are quite expensive if you look at the cost per standard six pack), I think you have to look at Trillium's bottles essentially as pre-filled 750ml growlers (non-reusable). As such, they are a bit more expensive than Tree House's 750ml growler fills, but you don't have to wait 2-3 hours to have them filled. Sometimes (often for me), that convenience is worth the price differential, but obviously you can decide for yourself.

The other obvious factor at work here is that Tree House now has opened its larger production brewery, and has the canning option, and Trillium still is working on their build out. Hopefully, pricing can improve some once it is complete.

Also, I'm not sure it ever has been possible to leave Tree House with $60 in Julius cans given the limits that typically are in place (again, I could be wrong here as I don't follow it that closely), so the example mostly is hypothetical at the moment.

 

This is getting to be as bad as picking apart the Wells Report.

 

For $60 you can get like 350oz of Hoponious.

 

The guy who asked the original question stopped reading 20 posts ago. He's like, "Screw it."

 

Yeah, sorry to take the air out of this otherwise scintillating discussion.

 

Trillium

 

I think Congress is $18/2L and Julius is $16/2L. So 4 growlers of Congress would be $72 compared to Julius being $64. However you're going to spend at least 30 minutes more waiting at Tree House (I think an hour is a pretty short wait at TH and a half hour is a pretty long wait at Trillium) so if you value your time at >$16/hour, Trillium is actually a better deal...

 

Sorry it really can be a Red Sox-Yankees thing in regards to craft beer

 

You'll be happy at/with either. TH definitely fits the tranquil environment bill better but the difficulties of the seaport are vastly overrated on this board so I wouldn't shy away from Trillium based on that.

 

Back to the point of this thread, OP wanted the best beer in MA. Depending on what's available, I'd still say there isn't anything quite like fresh Julius or the better TH brews in MA and I love Trillium.

 

hey leave for MA late morning/early afternoon…find a spot to rent and/or check-in the spot that you already rented…pick up some meat for your outdoor BBQ….take a short nap after all that driving and THEN head to TH around 5:30 (no line whatsoever - also assuming that you are going on a Saturday) pick up some cans….there will be good stuff left on tap (get a growler or w/e else you like) and then enjoy the beautiful Western Mass landscape! Paradise!