Tree House Julius

Brewing consistent beer is extremely hard. Becomes exceptionally hard when you factor in a massive increase in the Brewing size of the batches and also one of the most difficult styles to brew consistently seems to be that New England style IPA due to inconsistencies in hops also in the overall amount of particles put into the beer at canning / bottling.

 

My theory is that the batch size makes a big difference as the above poster points out. There was what appeared to be a small batch of Julius in May (6pp and only lasted a few days) that was fantastic. Tons of mango flavors. Almost as good at the Kkking Juliusss. I also think that's why the whales with 2pp limits taste so good - because they are small batches.

The mid-June Julius batch had too strong of a nutty, malt backbone with very little fruit/juice/mango to it. I honestly would enjoy the below average June Julius if I didn't wait in line 100 minutes for it. It's still a good beer. It would be a great beer if they ponied up and distributed...

 

I’ve had one great batch of Julius since Charlton opened, and that was in May of this year. Really brought me back to the first Julius I had in 2016. That being said, I just picked up a 12 pack Julius tonight.....will report back.

 

I think it is a combination of batch size, and the constant improvement being made with the process in general has made a beer like Julius feel lightly hopped in comparison. The curiosity series is not a fruitless endeavor not matter how some folks think these are just bad batches of core beers slapped with the label.

If I recall Nate at one point posted on social media or the blog that there is now 2-3x the amount of hopping in the DIPAs like Haze as compared to early Monson days. But with the pales and single IPAs like Julius, this has probably not increased as much in order to keep the character of these beers. So I would say Jjjuliusss or the King would be more in line with the increased hopping on others in their portfolio, otherwise the regular Julius may feel quaint in comparison.

Edit: And MOST other breweries are going through the same exercise, so what were the flagships of the past will not taste the same to us now...

 

Well I’m drinking one from the latest batch right now. Best Julius I’ve had in a while

 

I just had a Julius from the latest batch and thought it was average, right in the middle of the pack as far as Julius goes, in fact, I enjoyed the eureka with citra I had a few hours before much more than I did Julius.

 

Definitely a lot of variation batch to batch. I’ve had ones that blew my mind and ones that were just ok (I’ve never had a “bad” beer from them)

 

I've had this nagging thought that as beer producers scale up they lose what made them special. All the breweries I used to love, Treehouse, Trillium all seemed to suffer as their production increased.(albeit, treehouse is still really good, they don't taste as unique as they once did). I thought, maybe there's just something related to even physics with these unfiltered beers and giant tanks. I really don't know.

However, one brewery seemed to be impervious to this, the Alchemist.

It's easy to call this out as hipsterism or whatever, but I recently saw an interview with John Kimmich that really supported my thought on this. He very directly said something along the lines of "how many breweries do you know that scaled up just had a fall off with quality". He didn't completely equate it to just scale though, he attributed the fall off to automation. The Alchemist keeps as much of their brewing process in the literal hands of their brewers. Instead of investing in tons of digital equipment, him and his wife invested in more manpower and training.

It's a really interesting thought, and from someone with as much experience and talent as him to say it...well I believe it.

Anyway, on the topic of Julius I agree completely. It's a great beer now, and it probably always will be. But that yeasty bubblegum background that used to be so unique and overt, is hardly there anymore. I don't blame my tastebuds for it.

And then slightly off topic, you see the rotating cast of brewers at places like Trillium and is it any wonder that their beers are inconsistent and sometimes downright bad? Alchemist cares about their employees, and people that work there, WORK there. It's not some transient thing.

 

Definately agree with you. I remember the first time I had julius, the mango was insane. I've only tried maybe 3 more times in the last 2 years but it has never been the same. I did get to try king julius and there was a lot more mango but it still didn't have that same punch you in the face mango my first one did.

 

I love the Alchemist but I think it's important to note a few things. First, one important reason their beer retains its uniqueness compared to Tree is because far fewer breweries are attempting to copy (successfully or unsuccessfully) their beer. Personally I wish that wasn't the case as I'm someone who's always preferred Alchemist for hoppy stuff, but far more places have been attempting to chase the Tree House flavor profile for years now. For that reason, I'm not sure I could ever be close to as impressed as I was drinking Julius in the past. I think a similar dynamic played out with Lawson's losing some of their uniqueness appeal due to other breweries trying to recreate the flavors of the Sunshine beers long before their new location was even finished.

Second, I definitely recall a fair bit of grumbling in the early days of the Stowe location, particularly with beers like Crusher and Focal being compared to their popup sale versions. Then again I also know of someone who swears every can of Heady they've tried pales in comparison to the original bottle run.

Finally and most importantly, I really don't think scale can be underplayed here. The brew system at Alchemist's Stowe location is the same size as the one in Monson was, and they're not brewing anywhere near the same amount of barrels per week in that location as Tree House was, never mind Charlton (which produces in 3-4 months what both Alchemist locations combined do in a year). It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison for me when Alchemist simply has never had to scale up anywhere near the extent that Tree House has. If anything I'd say the level of quality maintained during previous scaling up from the 5 to 30 barrel system in Monson impresses me much more than Alchemist's own more gradual expansion.

 

[Enters cautiously)

I remember my first Monson Julius and thinking it was far inferior to the Brimfield Julius.

 

I honestly think its 75% palate fatigue and 25% the beer is actually different since Monson. I used to think the beer was dramatically worse after Monson, these days however, I think we have all drank so much NEIPA that we're getting kind of sick of it. Ive come to the conclusion that NEIPAs are no longer capable of really standing out to me. I still like them, but I wont chase or wait in line for them like I did in 2016.

 

They do distribute, they just have hundreds of distributors visit the brewery daily, who then ship the beers out via FedEx/UPS to people all over the world.

I always wonder what the environmental impact is of their 'distribution' method vs conventional distribution methods.

 

I don’t feel as if I have much of a palette memory, so comparing to Brimfield is not something I do. For whatever it’s worth, I still grab a bunch of Julius whenever I stop & they have it...and I miss it if it’s not one of the offerings that particular visit. It’s such a tasty beer (for me) and I haven’t found many I like better than it from other breweries.

Just thought I’d add a slightly different perspective from those all ready represented...

 

IT'S
Palate

NOT
Pallet
OR
Pallette

 

I think this was kind of the point. By choosing to scale up and automate more, the beer quality falls off. Alchemist has chosen to remain at the size of Treehouse Monson.

Also there are two separate phenomena taking place that are being talked about interchangeably:

1) The dry-hopping rate of julius relative to the industry has declined. 3#/bbl was a lot back in the day, not so much anymore. This is, what it is. If that's what you want, only buy beers like perfect storm, vvvery greennn, super typhoon or beers some other brewery dry-hopping to the extreme.

2) Julius quality varies from batch to batch between good to fantastic. I think this due to inconsistency of the their yeast profile at a larger scale rather than dry-hopping amounts. The bigger DIPAs that are more hop forward rather treehouse yeast and ester forward vary less from batch to batch. I find there is almost zero variation in the Bright. Curiosity 71, which they stressed their house yeast to coax more esters, had a lot of the flavors that are often missing in Julius. I don't think its a coincidence that people stated that 71 reminded them of monson beers. Hopefully they apply some of what they learned with 71 to the core beers.

 

I just disagree with treating it like such a strict choice when Alchemist never had the overwhelming demand that Monson did. Even when they had to shut down Waterbury to the public, they still weren't coming close to the customers per day that Monson was dealing with and they probably aren't at Stowe either. When demand reaches a certain point, the choice to remain small becomes less and less sustainable. I'm certainly not going to criticize Tree House for not going the way of Alchemist when their respective demand problems were of such different magnitudes.

Also Nate has said previously that the numbers for Julius specifically floating around aren't accurate and that their hopping rate has gone up across the board.

 

If juicy is what you mean, then please ignore the rest of this. I don't feel like a lot of breweries have tried to emulate Tree House at all. I think that a lot of breweries have actually tried to emulate Trillium, Tired Hands, and to a lesser degree, Other Half. Tree House has a very unique yeast blend and I imagine that it would be difficult to maintain on a commercial scale for any brewery. Hell, even TH seems to struggle with its potency on this larger scale.

My reasoning, see below:

Tree House uses a yeast blend versus a single strain for many of the other breweries. I imagine it's hard to maintain that level of consistency on such a large scale. On a commercial scale where breweries are looking to save money wherever they can to improve their margins, I doubt that a lot of breweries are trying to chase TH's blend.

It feels like a lot of breweries have chased the Trilliums of the world who have always (well, in the past) put forth a more hop forward IPA. Furthermore, the use of adjuncts (wheat, oats, etc) has been emulated by a lot of breweries to get that "thick" mouthfeel and that was done prominently by the likes of Trillium, Tired Hands, Hill Farmstead, and Other Half.

From a tasting perspective, it has seemed to me that this has been the case. While not featuring the hops as well as Trillium used to, a lot of breweries are pushing those intense hoppy and sometimes unrefined IPAs. I don't see a lot of breweries with the mouthfeel that Tree House's yeast puts out. Additionally, I don't get see a lot of balance, but that seems to be a problem throughout the industry, even with Tree House nowadays.

I've started writing this post a few times today so I apologize that it's repetitive and a little disjointed.

 

OP clearly hasn't heard of Newton's Theorem (and I'm talking about @RobNewton PhD not the other one who got hit with the apple)

I'm paraphrasing but it states that any subsequent batch can only be 99% as good as the batch before, unless the batch number is a prime number (with the exception of 2), in which case it can be 101% better than the prior batch. Essentially it means that it is mathematically impossible for anything to be better than batch 1.