Tree House (2021)

Which is all the more reason that TH should include can dates on social media.

 

not SM, but their ecommerce site

 

This is yet another case of a BA thinking that all beer consumers operate as people on here do.

They don't! BA's are a tiny, tiny minority and the majority of Treehouse's buyers A) Don't have an arbitrary date cutoff for hoppy beers or B) Would not even know or think to look for a date on the beers they buy.

So TH, as any business that wants to be even remotely successful also does, caters to the masses and not the niche.

 

I don't think you're giving people who buy Treehouse (or BA members) much credit. I'm pretty sure most people who drive hours to spend 100$ + on a case of beer know enough to prefer fresh beer. It's even one of Treehouses slogans. As much beer as they sell it's a bit of a stretch to claim a brewery that doesn't distribute any product is "catering to the masses".

 

I don’t know that that’s the majority any longer. Having many friends now who really weren’t paying much attention to it a few years ago and still don’t really care for much but the taste. They will buy whatever they can get and never pay attention to the dates. I think if you were investing time into it from say 2010/11 heady/hill/lawsons and later Trill and Tree boom you are more likely to be a date fanatic. It was actually a fairly new idea at that time. Or at least the hyper focus on it. Kimmich even putting that old video out about it. But, still need to add Sam Adam’s to that list as they were the first brewery I remember nationally advertising buying fresh beer. Or more specifically taking care old beer off the shelves. Which they aired in those adds in the mid 2000’s.

A much much bigger segment of the population would laugh at folks complaining about dates(or question if it’s a “hobby” or issue) and probably make snarky comments. Which is why Abinbev makes those adds about craft beer geeks. And yes, breweries know many people live in both the macro and micro world now. Which is why they basically caved and produce seltzer’s now.

I for one understand and support anyone’s desire for the product how it was intended.

 

Under the FAQ heading on their website

If this is true, and I'm not saying it's not, then why not put dates out their for people who do care since according to you the majority of TH customers don't care about dates. Are you suggesting that if dates were put on the website people who don't care about how old a beer is would suddenly start caring?

 

It's funny that Heady is really what put the drink fresh concept on my radar, because short of Sierra Nevada there probably isn't a brewery whose hoppy stuff holds up better past the 2 month mark than the Alchemist.

As far as TH, I think they've pushed the limit a bit on what is within a reasonable time frame to sell, mostly given that iirc they've changed the wording on their site to reflect a wider range of what they consider fresh. That said, I do think that if you're in the population of customers that cares about dates, you're also likely in the population of customers who can easily figure out what is and isn't old prior to clicking buy. I don't know if that makes it totally kosher, but I agree with IGYP more than I don't.

 

Perhaps this is true but I don’t personally agree that it is accurate the degree that you may. While the majority of Treehouse drinkers don’t post, discuss, or review various companies beers on a platform such as this, I do believe that the majority of people driving out of their way to a location like TH and certainly paying the elevated TH prices care about quality and are looking for a superior product and therefore do care and want to make informed decisions.

 

Brought up a few times in the last few posts ... would people guess that the majority of Treehouse customers are "local" (I'll randomly define that as within 30-45 minutes)? I feel like they must be (especially more so now with all the restrictions in place).

 

Meh. When your batches are so big and start overlapping that they don't sell out in a couple weeks, it pretty quickly becomes a bad idea. That was my point.

Back in Monson days, TH could've done this with no adverse effects because their beer sold out in less than a week. If Fox Farm ever starts outpacing demand, I'm sure you'll stop seeing canning dates. They're only advertised when it's advantageous.

 

Advantageous? FF added the can dates to their page a week ago. During dry January, in a sustained pandemic. Their inventory has surely been turning over slower than a year prior.

 

I bet the range is bigger- more like 1.5 hours. I go about once a month (one hour-one way) and I see enough plates from neighboring states (plus my stereotyping of NYC and Boston bros) to assume that the range is further than 45 mins.

 

I was on a dry January until my birthday and I just had a month old JJJ and it was great. Could that be because it was my first beer in 3 weeks, or it held up well over a month? Probably both I do however, think it is BS that a place that puts "enjoy fresh" on their cans doesn't prominently list canning dates on their website. For all the cash that TH has been throwing around towards property acquisitions, you would think they could put some money into their web interface and commitment to freshness.

 

I can't speak to JJJ, but I have had the base Julius at 3 months multiple times and it has been a spectrum from great (not excellent mind you) to shite. In all iterations the custody chain was direct from the brewery to my cooler filled with ice to my refrigerator. This obviously leads one to suspect that Treehouse's shelf stability is highly variable from batch to batch. Not being a brewer myself I am unaware of what variables would lead to this type of variation in shelf stability, but as someone who is reasonably knowledgeable I could guess that it might have something to do with batch size. Or maybe it has something to do with intra-batch variation? I have noted many time folks here on beer advocate coming up with wildly varying opinions on cans with the same date. I guess more likely it has to do with simple human fallibility.

 

For sure, but there are degrees to this. Degrees to being a beer nerd in general, first off, and that's what I was getting at. If you have been in to craft for any length of time in the Northeast and you've got any friends who are, you've heard of Treehouse. You may have been there, you may have had their beer some other way, but you've heard of them. And you have a general idea that you should drink hoppy beers fresh. That's the 'majority' segment I'm talking about. The hyper-minorty segment, BA posters, are the people on some 'Green is good through eight weeks but Juice Machine falls off after like four' shit.

No successful business is gonna cater to the later over the former. There's plenty of time they can overlap and cater to both, and that's awesome but the larger group is gonna be the focus.

 

Got excited to see another full barrel stout...... And it has Coffee! Hurray- but wait, also chocolate. Why?@#$! Oh well, at least the 4 pack of the Lagunitas coffee stout is cheaper than one bottle of TH stout.

 

Re: The Alchemist. I got 12 Headys back in October and intentionally left one out and unrefrigerated for a few weeks. It was probably pushing 2 months old when I drank it and it was missing very little.

I’ve also had two-month old Treehouse IPAs and found them delightful as ever.

Sierra Nevada really sets the bar for maintaining freshness though. You could probably get a 9-12 month old Torpedo and be only slightly confused.

 

have had fresh julius across this same spectrum from fantastic to I don't want to drink this, with the batch before this batch of reverse cans being tremendous

 

My god, this current batch of super treat is fantastic! Definitely a standout beer from Treehouse!

 

I had an Autumn last night that was canned on 11/24 and thought it was fantastic.