Controversy Surrounds Trillium's Labor Practices, Former Employee Alleges Deceptive Biz Practices

(Moderation Note: This post and subsequent discussion was moved out of the Trillium Brewing Company release thread in the New England forum, which periodically gets locked.)

Related:

• Paste: Trillium Brewing Co. Is Being Raked Over the Coals Online, With Accusations of Employee Mistreatment
• Globe: Trouble is brewing at craft beer darling Trillium
• Brewbound: Trillium Labor Practices, Brewing Methods Questioned

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I thought about making an alt account to respond to this because trillium knows my username and actively monitors social media for employee posts. In fact, social media posts are part of the reason I was terminated. Hopefully I don't get sued lol. BTW you don't need to tag @JCTetreault, he and the social media team read this daily. You'd actually be surprised how much they pay attention and respond internally to issues addressed in this thread. Maybe this will will be the tipping point that improves quality of life for the employees. I doubt it.

I can say that everything posted about employee wages and benefits being cut is true. JC and Esther have absolutely no respect for the people working for them, all they care about is $$$. Guess you can't really blame them, it is a business after all. They are well aware of the fact that people want the "prestige" of working for a top brewery and are willing to be underpaid to build the resume. You can probably count on one hand the number of people who have lasted more than 3 years. Trillium started paying $5/hr instead of $8/hr to new retail staff right around the time the greenway first opened, so this isn't just because of the restaurant. However, any longstanding employees of the Congress st location were indeed given a pay cut for their years of service.

Let me say that again, after working for trillium for 3+ years, employees were (after interviewing for the jobs they already had) offered $3/hr less to work the exact same job across the street. That may not sound like a lot, but that is a 37.5% cut that would be ~$6000 a year for full time staff.

At the end of the day, this is not illegal, it's just shitty. Trillium has however been involved with at least one blatantly illegal practice. Did you guys ever try the frozen Mexican sunrise beer? Ever wonder how they got that distinct tequila flavor? Lots of customers did too and let me tell you it was awkward as hell having to skirt that question or outright lie to the customers. At first we were telling customers that it was a wild ale aged in tequila barrels, but then customers started asking which barrels we were using. I asked the general manager, Matt Gartska what barrels we aged the beer in and his response, "Idk dude just make something up!" If you haven't figured it out yet, there were no tequila barrels. They straight up dumped tequila into the kegs. I'm no lawyer, but I know that us illegal. Trillium knows it too because eventually they just told us to stop acknowledging the tequila flavor or to tell the customers it was "brewers magic".

Speaking of those frozen beers, did you ever wonder how they made money on them? Probably not because you assume people ordered them, they didn't. Trillium wasn't concerned however because those slushies were made with leftover beer that had too much trub to sell in a glass. Hell some of the times it was just low fill bottles they couldn't sell (oxidation, etc.) but throw enough fruit juice in their and people will love it! Remember cellar Sunday samples? Those ended when they realized they could sell misfills as frozen bs instead. Yes those samples you tried were beers not good enough to sell.

While we're on the subject of beer not fit to sell, let's talk about growlers. Trillium growlers are almost exclusively filled with beer from trub kegs. For those that don't know, trub is the hop/yeast particulate that settles on the bottom of the fermenter. All the "good" beer goes into cans and taproom kegs. The last few kegs of each batch are full of trub and those get allocated to growlers.

Part of the reason that growlers are not for sale the same day as cans is that those trub kegs need to sit for a couple days so that the trub settles on the bottom. Then you can fill a good number of growlers until you hit the really gross stuff. How is it determined if it's good enough? A manager taste tests it until the burn goes away. Yes I'm serious. Hopefully this ends the can vs growler debate, the growlers are decidedly inferior product. I guess if you like a more raw hop/vegetal slightly astringent flavor then by all means go for the growlers.

This post is already long enough, so I'll end it here. If you have any more questions, AMA!