Tired Hands (August 2018)

Not everybody who runs a business runs it to maximize the amount of sales they do, or the amount of product they make, or total revenue, or some other business-related metric. Don't get me wrong, Jean and his wife and whoever else is involved at the highest level obviously have good business sense and are running their brewery with the intent of generating profit and making money, but it's surely not the only consideration.

Plants and trees and stuff don't matter, but every small business owner who successfully grows their business eventually has to decide where it ends. Do they stay small and eke out an OK living with total control over the company's product, or do they continue to expand and let the market dictate where it goes? They could go buy a defunct farm in Lancaster County and package 10,000 cases of beer a week for sale if they wanted to, and the market would probably support it. But they might not want to do that. The fact that they could do it and be successful and make more money is not the only thing they're considering when they decline to do so.

 

With the prices they're charging? I really can't see that happening .It works for Treehouse because they are on an entirely different playing field when it comes to hyped beer

 

I don’t think the market would support that at all. We just had a VERY high resell collab shake with arguably the most desirable brewery in the country and they had 80 cases behind the bar. I think it’s pretty clear that a lot of TH’s problems come down to a lack of organization. As argued above, I believe the TH hype is a lot lower than most people in the mid-atlantic think and many of the choices they’ve made are to encourage the hype.

I’ve been into Supreme for 3 years or so now. They’ve been making the same comments about not wanting to expand for a decade or so. I understand businesses making choices. I don’t understand having long term problems you don’t address at all, or apply an easy fix for.

 

It isn’t one of his original spaces, I think it is more of a space to mess around and it is on his farm so I think that is why his coolship is there and not in his other spots that are in more built up areas.

 

Regardless of business model we are starting to see an interesting time in the can release era of Tired Hands with their production ramped up, prices being what they are and a general catching up to the haze craze from other local breweries. I love Tree House and Trillium and (insert other hyped brewery here) but when Tired Hands is on with a simple ipa or dipa they are still my favorite and if they could dial in Only Void to my first anniversary growler levels of nostalgia that was a chocolate, earthy bomb then man oh man.
This is not only for cans either as most days you can buy 10 or so different bottles at the general store. I remember lining up along Ardmore Ave on a weekend morning for one bottle or even just for growler fills. I'm happy they are here but am curious to see what else Jean has planned, assuming there are any additional plans. Now if SARA could come back out here and collab on some more mannequin throne that would be great.

 

I think they have to do the releases the way they do because with the new shi-pa-town apartments going up it would be impossible to get enough foot traffic with the non existent parking. Adapt and overcome.

 

Just came here to ask...where the heck is Aardmore?

 

Are they? Are Julius and Green and Haze and Bright really that hyped any more? Those are the beers they are cranking out 2500 cases of a week. They can do it because they can those cases on Tuesday or Wednesday, and they have the storage space to have them and 9000 other cases of beer sit around for the rest of the week.

Stuff like Very Green or King Julius that see silent releases have much more limited canning runs, and it works in part because several hundred people are showing up every day to buy beer. If you're already in for a case+ of Julius and Green, of course you're going to snag whatever limited beer pops up the day you go.

It works for Tree House because the beer is good. They aren't selling out 10,000 cases of beer a week on hype. That's not how hype and scarcity marketing work.

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what is Tree House's method on can releases and how does it differ from Tired Hands? I honestly don't know. I have heard that Tree House keeps pretty low limits - that's about all I know.

 

The blonde ale from last week was hands down the most disappointing beer I've had from Tired Hands, considering the price.

 

I haven't had it, but it didn't sound very appealing (mostly due to the nuts).

 

Tree House's limits are absurdly high now that they're operating out of Charlton. It's not uncommon to see people leaving there with hand trucks to haul beer. Back in the Monson days, you were lucky to max out on half a case.

We're going to be in Langhorne Wednesday to Thursday, and my wife and I want to stop by TH one night for dinner. Tired Hands does can releases every Wednesday right? How packed does the Ferm get on Wednesdays and how is parking in the area?

 

Pretty much Wednesday night is their normal release night, unless a holdiay week then they push to Thursday night. Release on weekdays is at 5:00.

The Ferm gets pretty busy on can release days, but gets really busy on Milkshake (or other highly sought after beers) releases, so much so that a table to eat can be an hour wait, easy.

Parking on a release day is challenging for sure, very limited parking and lots of permit only parking spaces. Meters run until 6pm each night but on release days (more so on shake days) it is very hard to find parking in the area from about 3 oclock on.

 

FYI - Ardmore has implemented the ParkMobile mobile app to pay the meters in the event you don't have change. It's pretty slick and easy, especially if you have ApplePay on your phone.

 

Thanks @Nadtla @Kadonny. I have a pretty hard and fast rule to not expose my wife and kid to the #linelife, so we wouldn't be swinging through until after 7 or so. Dinner is the priority with cans being a nice bonus if available.They seem to be lasting, so hopefully I'll be able to bring some stuff home.

 

Glad to help. Worse case if all cans at the Ferm are sold out, swing by the General Store (a few blocks away, but walkable) and grab some cans there. Lately they've had as many as 4 or 5 canned beers there available for purchase with no lines or limits. Enjoy!

 

Don't forget, TH has two other beer venues in Ardmore....The General Store, which has some cans and lots of great bottle selections, and The Brewcafe for beers on tap brewed only at the Brewcafe and nice food selection. However, it's important to note that the Brewcafe is primarily an adult establishment.

 

Now that their new production facility is up and running, they consistently do ~2,500 case canning runs of their core beers - Green, Haze, Julius, Bright, Eureka, etc. They'll do 3 of those a week with a case limit, then run something much more limited (and hyped), like a few hundred cases or so of Very Green, King Julius, etc. The limits on these will be much lower, from 2-6 cans depending on the beer and the amount they have. They'll also have another beer or 2 that comes out in the course of their weekly releases.

This differs from Tired Hands, in that a given Tired Hands release will usually be one day a week, and on the order of 1,000 cases or less. Tree House is making 8,000 - 10,000 cases a week or so, and will release cans for 3 or 4 days. Interestingly, they still have 3,000 cases of last week's releases left over, so I don't know if they release less and roll those into this week's releases or what. I think this is a relatively new development, much like Tired Hands' releases lasting next day, even Milkshakes, seems to be a new development too.

Tree House's new location is basically just a large scale brewing and canning operation. They crank out 10 times the amount of cans compared to what Tired Hands will do in a given week.

 

CSA Week 1: Fuzzy Green
CSA Week 2: Pineal
CSA Week 3: D2H3: Motueka
CSA Week 4: Raspberry Green Tea Milkshake
CSA Week 5: Trendler Pilsner
CSA Week 6: High Road
CSA Week 7: Feliz Vendedor
CSA Week 8: Technicolor Splendor

There were four cans released last week, two of which were brand new and the third the vanilla shake. While never promised something crazy every week as a bunch of repeat customers to Tired Hands and for the overall price paid I was hoping for more than the cheapest option most weeks.