Breweries that have NOT lost their way.

I think someone else mentioned Tree House as well earlier in the thread and I did a double take. I had actually glossed over the fact that the breweries need to be 10 years or older.

I did the double take because they more or less STARTED the trend that has caused others to lose their way...brewing New England IPAs.

I think that would be a terrible business move if they somehow "lost their way" and became a Belgian or German style focused brewery.

 

Bull City in Durham brews a Dark Mild, it’s distro is thru a local beer store and it’s growler fills. It’s not individually packaged though not sure if that’s what you meant. Bull City’s offering is very good tons of flavor and I believe 3.8 abv.

 

There's Old Chico Wheat (Chico) and Southern Gothic Pils (NC) as far as packaged beers go. No idea on what's available in kegs.

 

Oh yeah, that's more what I meant.

We have a local brewery that distributes their mild to a local beer store in crowlers as well.

 

TH, HF, etc ... are still riding the wave of high popularity of their signature styles.

Of course they haven't lost their way (even ignoring the 10 year mark), because their way has generated nothing but success. Let's wait until NEIPAs start dying down in popularity, when the lines are shorter, when the distribution accounts are buying less... what will they do then?

If a brewery's "way" has had no stress on the brewery, barring mismanagement - e.g. the terrible business move you mention, there has been no "way" to lose... yet.

 

@AlcahueteJ

I don't want to turn this into a Treehouse thread and I don't think either of you meant your posts in a negative way to begin with. But for the record I think Treehouse could have pretty easily lost their way during either one of their two exponential expansions that took them from a literal shed on the side of the road to a 50K barrel a year destination brewery in the span of about 5 years.

I continue to find it bonkers that they've been able to maintain the same business model (100% onsite sales with lines every day) throughout the past 8 years. And I was actually kind of thinking they deserved an exemption from the 10 year rule just because they've maintained such success (both monetary and reputation wise) during a stretch of such radical changes to the brewery, even if they still hang their hat on the same two styles.

I think they could have pretty easily ended up as a cautionary tale of over expansion and the difficulties of brewing their style of beer on a massive scale (e.g. Alpine).

 

Yes, this is what I meant.

Although I put Hill Farmstead in a different category than Tree House. Even though HF was only founded a year earlier, I don't really recall hearing much about Tree House until the last five years or so. Hill Farmstead has been winning awards for years. They were 34th on Rate Beer's top breweries in the world list in 2011, 6th in 2012, and were number 1 by 2013.

More importantly, they brew a variety of styles, not just mostly New England IPAs like Tree House.

 

I feel as if this thread is more about philosophical changes rather than expansions. Not being able to scale your product and going from brewing all German styles to chasing the New England IPA trend are completely different things.

Even if the end result is the same if you fail...the customer isn't happy.

I don't find it that insane. Their model is more or less THE model that has made many many local breweries successful in 2019.

Don't over expand, stay local, and brew popular styles.

One could argue losing their way would be to get greedy and start distributing. How is the Tree House story any different than say, Bissell Brothers? Who, I might add, actually brew a decent of amount of styles now.

 

It's kind of become that but I don't think that criterion actually exists in the OPs post.

Bissell brews less than a fifth of what TH does, they have a large brewpub rather than a glorified wharehouse that sometimes serves drafts, and they distribute their beer. Apart from that nothing I guess?

My point is that they are maintaining that "tiny local" model on a scale that I'm not sure anyone else is even close to and that could have easily failed at such a level.

 

Yeah was going to say same thing. Whatever may or may not happen with Treehouse when there is a broader style shift, HF is in a totally different category, has a fairly significantly different business model, and nails a lot of different styles.

 

I’d say Dogfish Head hasn’t lost their way over the years. Still seem to have the same basic overall approach. Of course, now that they’ve merged with BBC we’ll see moving forward.

 

I was gonna say Beachwood, but it fails the decade test. Not QUITE sure how old Smog City is, but their beer never fails me.

 

This is true. I still don't think of it as losing your way if you can't scale up. But then again, I could see it that way too, someone mentioned Alpine earlier.

Oh yeah, when I thought of "distribution" I was just thinking of cans. I forgot they have multiple draft accounts in and around Portland.

I sort of agree with the "easily failed" part. I think at the moment not distributing at all actually helps them. Many breweries are running into trouble trying to expand through distribution, not from on-premise sales.

I agree though in that this could fail...down the road as the market changes. The current market is right in their wheel house, and they expanded to meet that demand.

Hill Farmstead was the "hot new thing" six years ago, and they've remained a sought after beer mecca.

I don't think I can still say that about other breweries that were all the rage back then, like The Alchemist, Russian River...etc. Let's see what Tree House's popularity looks like in five years. I already know they've lost a BIT of their edge because of production being so high. You can easily get a case of their beer at any point in time now.

 

Schell's

 

Firestone Walker

 

https://www.treehousebrew.com/blog/2015/1/6/re-growler-fills-at-tree-house-in-the-future

Fruited Berliner! It's hard to remember that Tree House wasn't just a giant brownie batter factory at one point...

 

Lawson's and Allagash...I'm sure they were already mentioned, but I second them

 

New England Brewing Company (NEBCO) in CT.
Never got caught up in the NEIPA hazy hype (although I often wish they had!).
Still brewing their classics, plus new creative releases. Many former head brewers from NEBCO have gone to open up new breweries across the northeast (and maybe beyond).

 

Personally I'm done betting on Treehouse's bubble to burst. At this point I have to conclude they have access to the same universe bending witchcraft as Maine Brewing Company

 

Love MBC, but I haven’t seen one under 8 months old in forever, so I’d guess most guys here don’t know the difference. A shame they make great beers too.