Do you like Trillium's new fermentation profile?

From a quick check of my finances, my Trillium spending was down over 50% in 2018 and about 70% since the cost-cutting fermentation profile change in June. Spent over $2k each of the last few years but not even close this year--and $0 last two months. I'll still go on Sundays to grab stouts to send to friends but I'm all set with the new IPAs. (I check in pretty much every beer I drink on Untappd and DDHMS was probably my all-time favorite beer: 108 check-ins before they changed the beer in June, just 4 check-ins since.) It's trickled down for me as I used to go to Trillium-stocked Five Horses and Lulu's 1-2x per week; now don't even go once a month.

You see that company picture--there's like 200 people working there now! Was like 8 people three years ago lol. Trillium is corporate now and they don't need us beer geeks and that's fine. It happens. I liken it to what us old guys used to say about rock bands "selling out". Trillium's reputation was built on the backs of the beer geeks drinking it at Publick House, Lord Hobo etc and telling people about it and trading it to other geeks around the country but Trillium now has to think about bottom lines and profit margins and they don't need the geeks anymore. The beer itself no longer matters as the reputation is there ("#3 brewery in the world!!!" lol) and Joe Fourpack (I'm guessing Joe Sixpack is sticking to Bud Lite) going into Fort Point or the Greenway for the 1st time has no idea the beers now suck ass compared to what they were.

Trillium used to be world class and now it's an also-ran. Whatever. I'm fine spending more at Tree House, Counterweight, Definitive, River Roost etc and I'm sure JC & Esther won't miss me when they're cashing their $1B check from Constellation/InBev...

 

I like a few of the new beers a lot. I like mettle and scaled up more than I did previously. The rest of the core beers are trashed.

"For me" so I don't get some pedantic response telling me I'm wrong again.

A couple years back I said they seemed to be positioning themselves for a buyout .Seems more of a reality now than ever.

 

I honestly need a fifth option -- I really can't tell. If pushed - I'd opt for #3 but not with much conviction. I don't buy as much Trillium as I used to but I still always have something in the fridge that's under a month old. I really liked the recent batch of DDH Farnsworth St and thought Minot's Ledge Light was awesome. Recent samples of DDH CS and FPPA did seem a bit muted but I still enjoyed them. Had a Citra CT last night and thought it was good. I've sworn in the past that my favorite hoppy beers went south at some pointy -- first PtE....then HF IPAs shifted for the worse in 2014-15 (still convinced to that seismic shift -- then they came back)...and HT will never have the same aroma as it did in 2011. But at the moment I'm so juiced out w/all of the great available options I honestly don't know.

 

I excel in pedantry. Who do you think will buy them?

 

I'm not interested in getting in on the latest Trillium debate, but having 200 employees doesn't make them corporate. They are far from being a corporation.

 

Ok, but at the same time they’ve definitely strayed from the “aww shucks we’re just a humble young couple” identity they constantly hawk every chance they get.

 

While I think consistency of product has vastly increased (less hop particulate, less onion/garlic in certain hop treatments- though I didn’t have that latest batch of el Dorado CT), I don’t love that all their beers are sweeter and more bubblegummy to me than they were before.

Not to say I don’t like that bubblegum flavor in some beers, just it’s not what I came to expect from their core beers.

Not sure how much of these “fixes” are coincident with growing pains from expansion and actually the new fermentation profile.

No one seems to say “it needs a week” since the new fermentation profile deployed, so mission accomplished? I never got that compalint though, for my palate I appreciated the hotter citric hop burn fresh that balanced out nicely with time.

 

I'm on record as hating the new fermentation profile. I used to drink 80% trillium from 2015-2017 and they were my favorite brewery. Beers like DDH Fort Point and Congress were the kings of IPA.

Now, I feel like it's just overpriced still aimed at the masses with too much money and not enough beer knowledge to know any better. Gone is that nice hop taste and in its place is a heavy muddled mess of a beer.

If they weren't Trillium, they wouldn't succeed in this golden age with the other breweries out there pumping out great product for less. Like others my spending at trillium has basically reached zero and those dollars are now going to smaller local breweries, which honestly is a great thing.

I wish Trillium would revert the core beers back to the old profile, but part of me thinks the old fermentation profile was something that left with the exodus of brewers that have gone elsewhere.

It's sad, but nobody can come here and realistically tell me that any trillium ipa holds a candle to some of the other titans like bissell, treehouse, hill farmstead, other half, etc.

 

I voted #3
My Trillium purchase are down significantly as well.
I do think the fermentation profile changed my favorites (FPPA and Congress St) but I still like and purchase them. I would say their beers are still better on tap as well. Moon Island was pretty damn tasty and agree with Sweathshirt about Mettle. For me, the increased thickness is what really sucks about the new profile and I think they lost crispness and flavor definition (all a bit muddled now)
Fortunately, there are plenty of great NEIPAs out there.
Also wish Notch was in my hood....

 

Have you had Mettle? Phenomenal beer, maybe even better with the new fermentation profile. Mettle blows away anything from Bissell. Tree House has serious consistency issues with all their hoppy offerings (green might be the only one that’s somewhat consistent). Hill Farmstead is on another level than pretty much anything in the NE.

 

It's been interesting to see people comment that the new fermentation profile has been better for the high alcohol beers. I thought it was peculiar that a lot of the Permutations that were produced prior to the adaptation of this profile were higher (8%+). I was surprised that we didn't see more lower abv tests. I think there were maybe 1-2 in the 6% range.

Also, with regards to the discussion on this being a cost cutting method. Are you saying that because they decided to go with only one yeast profile for the hoppy beers or because you all believe that the change itself was driven by cost cutting?

I'm not voting because I haven't been able to try these changes to the core beers. I will say that by the time I moved, Trillium was producing more beers that I disliked than beers I liked, which made it less worthwhile to visit/buy stuff.

 

Heavy Mettle is still really good, as is Dialed In. And I loved Dialed Up. But my two go-tos, FPPA and DDH Melcher are not nearly as good as they once were.

 

Hasn’t it been confirmed that the new “fermentation profile” was just a switch to a different yeast strain? Went from Conan to LAIII? Although JC said there were three yeast changes since Canton started. The new beers are definitely reminiscent of LAIII femented beers. I brewed a few beers with yeast fermented with dregs built up from a few small birds and it definitely acted like LAIII. That yeast is know for not attenuating quite as much and not finishing “sweeter” regardless of gravity which is what sounds like everyone’s biggest beef??

 

Confirmed? No. Rumored? Yes.

 

The big rumor is that it is a cost cutting measure. How is LAIII cheaper? Inquiring minds and such...

 

I highly doubt it was a cost cutting measure. Just a different yeast strain. If by coincidence a different yeast strain allowed them to go a few more generations or harvest more yeast effectively then it could technically be a “cost saving” measure I guess. But don’t think that every production brewery under the sun would do the same thing. Yeast ain’t cheap.

In my opinion the older beers were so raw so often. They always seemed to suffer from
The hop burn when fresh. I absolutely hated that about their beers. I only get to drink them in quantity 3-4 times per year but the two times I’ve picked up cans from the brewery since the fermentation profile change they were much less raw. I can definitely see that they would be perceived as sweeter but I prefer that to the over saturated hop burn from before. Haven’t really enjoyed many of their beers since the bomber days. That being said if you put that bomber from 4 years ago in front of me now I wonder what I would think of it.

 

I mean, as a pure business move regardless of whether the new yeast is "cheaper" this makes sense. With the bomber format, I would treat myself once in a while but not be sessioning Trillium beers often. But now with more availability and the opportunity to have multiple cans in a night or consecutive days, the acid reflux issue due to the hop burn was real. Anything keeping patrons from enjoying your product on a more consistent basis, with the high limits Trillium has now, is counter-productive.

That said, this is a business move and not necessarily designed to improve the existing stock although the beers newly designed to this profile are very good in their own right.

 

It's wild how the current range of Trillium opinions goes from "they're a world class brewery" to "they struggle to brew beer that doesn't literally burn my throat".

 

I don't agree that the high abv brews are improved. Each of the ones I've tried have been sweet, thick and syrupy. Strictly on technical merits, that might be OK - if you like that sort of thing - and maybe I've more-or-less enjoyed the first few sips, but I've struggled mightily to drink an entire 16oz can.