Tree House Brewing Company (2019)

I see what you did there

 

Here are the Holiday hours, Tuesday 12/31 and Thursday 01/02 will have drafts. Anything with a * will have drafts once the line is short and inside the brewery.

 

Tree House makes amazing beer and I appreciate it very much. Green and Haze are among my very favorite beers.

Right now, they are offering 10 DIPAs, 4 NEIPAs, and 5 imperial milk stouts.

Instead of continuing to develop additional new recipes for double IPA, NEIPA, and imperial milk stout (I'm truly amazed at this point that anyone can tell them all apart), how I wish they would apply their immense brewing skill to crafting and perfecting a standard (non-sweet, 5-6%) stout, a hefeweizen, a brown ale, a kolsch, and a West Coast IPA, and to keeping them available most of the time.

 

^^^^^^ this times a thousand

 

If they were to go the Hill Farmstead route and pour as much time and dedication into unlocking whatever new vein of beers they chose...I'm all for it.

What I've seen so far is: occasionally we toss out a pilsner?

So it won't be exciting to me if they diversify their lineup, as most likely those beers will be way overpriced compared to similar options and likely not as good (but be better rated). But if they were to actually take, as you describe, that acumen and interest they bring to IPAs and lactose stouts and pour it into a new style or series of styles, that would be incredible. But as long as their interest is predominantly "beer, but sweet" I'm never going to be all that excited to pay them $3.5 for a can of a hefeweizen, or whatever.

 

I got an early Christmas present of a fuckload of Tree House yesterday, and while I'm glad to have it, I also have absolutely no idea why Jingle Juice exists. I'll do a side by side at some point out of curiosity but my initial impression is that it tastes pretty much like every other IPA they make.

I feel like that's exactly what they're doing, they've just chosen veins that are super boring to me. The pasty stouts in particular... I don't know, it seems almost cynical on their part. I remember Dean telling me back in the day that Eureka was their favorite beer. With that in mind I look at the lineup now and wonder if they even like these beers, or if they've just sort of surrendered to the reality that any dumb stout full of Snickers bars sells out instantly while the pilsners gather dust.

 

gotta pay for those expansions, orchards, farms, apple presses, coffee roasters, pizza ovens, vineyards, potato farms, chocolate farms, cows, cartel fees, honey dew farms...

 

Thanks for the info. Do you think there will be crazy lines if I got there in the morning on 12/31? I’d be with the wife and two little kids. So we would either be there on the way to Boston on the morning of 12/31 or on the way home the evening of 1/02. I’d prefer to start my trip there and be able to have a draft or two during the day. But I know I can be in and out on 1/02 in the evening

 

"If you start listening to the fans, you'll end up sitting with them"

*Yawn*

 

I thought you would like that. I almost changed it to "difficult" but then thought better (or worse?) of it.

 

Don't they do those wild ales sometimes?

 

Well, their core IPAs are priced pretty much in line with market norms: Green, Julius, and Sap are all actually cheaper than a lot of similar style beers from breweries like Night Shift. Eureka, when they make it, is $2.80/can IIRC, and I think their lagers have been priced near there as well. If they continued their current pricing structure with more classic styles, they'd probably not be TOO far above the market standards for those styles; maybe a little pricier, but not completely out of line. Allagash White isn't a hefeweizen, but it's the closest thing to one that I can reliably get in Central MA, and it costs about $3/can. A Tree House offering at $3.50 wouldn't seem too bad in comparison.

 

I think that's only true up to an extent. The favorite "staff beers" at most breweries tend to be super drinkable. That isn't necessarily what moves the needle.

There's just a huge difference between treating lagers with the same reverence and interest they do IPAs and, say, their pitch for Trail Magic: "Another foray into crispy refreshing lagers! ...resulting in a most refreshing beverage... Clean and crispy, just the way we like them! A beer that takes the edge off of these hot summer days."

If they were into malts and krausening and slow pours and oak aging and and and the same way they're into remixing hops, they absolutely have the kind of interested audience that would support a program. Hell, they just launched a coffee program and developed beautifully designed one-sheets for how to brew coffee.

They're unlikely to produce a truly great beer in a style they rarely practice brewing, particularly at the price they're likely to charge. That isn't me saying they can't, or that they're super duper expensive, but part of brewing great [insert style] is repeat brewing of that style.

So all I'm really saying is...if they got into a second style beside IPAs that I enjoyed (I don't care for sugar bomb stouts), I'd be incredibly jazzed about it, because they've shown that if a style interests them they will do wonderful things with it. I don't think I agree that I'm dying for them to have a broad range of styles if that's not what gets them up in the morning.

 

Allagash is a better brewery and their beer is available everywhere, so... that actually does seem pretty bad in comparison to me.

 

*Cringe*

Don't cut yourself on those edges!

 

I mean, if they've cracked the code for getting a bunch of polo shirt dads into financing their agricultural products I think that's actually pretty cool, it's just not something I particularly need to be involved in...

 

Yes, NEIPAs have created a new market norm of an extravagantly priced beer. They produce one beer, occasionally, that's less than $12 a four pack! That's expensive as beers go. Yes, within the world of NEIPAs Tree House are not especially expensive compared to the competition.

I'm just not dying for another style of beer to become NEIPA-ized and have prices balloon. But I'd pay for it if they're going to really make something incredible. I'll pay Hill Farmstead prices for Mary/Marie any day of the week and twice on Sunday because not only are they insanely good but they are also pretty unique (at least in the states).

Allagash is probably a good comparison, in that they're at the high end of the market on price basically across the board. They also happen to produce one of the best, if not the singular best, Wits in the world. My hot take is if Tree House brewed a wit it would be fine, cost more than White, and get better reviews than White, but not be as good. If they really gave a shit about brewing a great Wit, they'd have done it already. But that's fine! Not every brewery needs to brew every beer well. They're clearly insanely talented brewers. But I'd rather they pick a third style (or range of styles) to go crazy on rather than the occasional tossed off version of a style.

But I'm really pissing into the wind at this point, it feels clear.

 

Allagash is a "clearly" better brewery, I think he meant.

 

And let's be real, even if they did, nobody would care. Ya'll can fight me all you want on this, but lagers/hefes/browns/pilsners are YAWN city to the craft beer community as a whole. I think it's awesome that they even attempt these styles when they're so busy Scrooge McDucking into enormous piles of IPA money every day.

 

Your piss feels clear?