Tree House Brewing Co (New Brewery Discussion Thread)

Discussion in 'New England' started by Tyler_E, Mar 9, 2016.

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  1. SRBush1974

    SRBush1974 Initiate (0) Apr 18, 2015 New Jersey

    Congrats Tree House! Much deserved and I'm sure will be a success.

    Looking forward to getting back up their and drink some beers at the brewery when it is complete.
     
  2. Topperclaus13

    Topperclaus13 Initiate (0) Jan 5, 2015 Massachusetts
    Trader

    Um, Trillium?
     
  3. nc41

    nc41 Initiate (0) Sep 25, 2008 North Carolina
    Trader

    Expanding quickly has its warts : see NoDa with Hop Drop and Roll. One day winning gold a stunningly good IPA, now it's a mess of a beer and has been off for well over a year, probably closer to two.
     
  4. JratBones

    JratBones Initiate (0) Oct 22, 2013 Massachusetts

    I'm about a 50 minute drive from there and I never go. Most people from Massachusetts aren't even drinking their beer. I got tired of standing in line for 2 hours for a total 8 beers(specially when 199 people in front of me are just sending it away in the mail as soon as they get home).
     
  5. emount91

    emount91 Initiate (0) Aug 28, 2015 Connecticut

    TRILL just literally did this a few months ago, major success thus far. only going to get better.
     
    lambpasty likes this.
  6. Topperclaus13

    Topperclaus13 Initiate (0) Jan 5, 2015 Massachusetts
    Trader

    Same, been once. Meanwhile I go to Portland all the time. Same drive for me, but I guess I find it more satisfying.
     
  7. djtothemoney

    djtothemoney Zealot (591) Nov 30, 2015 Ohio

    I had it last summer and I thought it was amazing, can't imagine it being much better.
     
  8. JratBones

    JratBones Initiate (0) Oct 22, 2013 Massachusetts

    Exactly. I love treehouse but Trillium is about 30 more minutes. Never a line and all the beer you could want.
     
    kalosjakar, dar482 and Topperclaus13 like this.
  9. DeweyCheatem-n-Howe

    DeweyCheatem-n-Howe Initiate (0) May 23, 2015 Massachusetts

    Oh man... if I could have Trillium AND Tree House on the shelves, I would be sooooo happy.
     
  10. berto714

    berto714 Initiate (0) Oct 16, 2014 New York

    Hmm, Alpine was bought out though and Nelson is now being produced by a totally different brewery. Not sure if this is comparable. Let's not jump to conclusions before we know.

    This must be hyperbole right? Unless you show up right at open you can usually get out of there with cans in 15 minutes.
     
    Johnct likes this.
  11. AshlandNacho

    AshlandNacho Initiate (0) Apr 14, 2013 Massachusetts

    If that's the location and you see someone in Charlton driving around in a brand new Porsche you can bet it's probably the owner of Zorba's .....
     
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  12. SRBush1974

    SRBush1974 Initiate (0) Apr 18, 2015 New Jersey

    I feel your pain. After my last 3 hr wait at Other Half, I'll stop going until they really expand.
     
    JratBones likes this.
  13. AlcahueteJ

    AlcahueteJ Grand Pooh-Bah (3,088) Dec 4, 2004 Massachusetts
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Sorry, I should have been more clear/specific. I'm talking about distributing perhaps on the level of a Jack's Abby. All of the top IPAs/double IPAs are limited releases/draft only/growler...and/or are being consumed quickly and within short distribution ranges. Trillium is distributing bottles locally to Redstone etc.

    Stone has their unfiltered Enjoy By now, but it's not the same as these turbid IPAs. And even that has a six week best by date. I think as you scale up, you have to tweak those recipes, otherwise the beers fall apart. I don't think the fact that Green Flash bought Alpine and expanded their distribution, and the beers changed (not for the better) while they had growing pains and recipe tweaks, are two facts that are mutually exclusive.

    Just speculation on my part, and curiosity. Probably the highest rated single IPA with a wide distribution range is Sculpin. And that beer is notorious for falling off quickly. Even still, it's not a "New England style" IPA, and isn't rated as highly as many of those.
     
  14. NEB_beer

    NEB_beer Initiate (0) Jan 28, 2016 Massachusetts

    Ha ,ha, when we bought our house from my wife's father and uncle, her uncle bought a brand new Porsche with the proceeds. He did at least let me drive it, thing was a rocket!
     
  15. StoutElk_92

    StoutElk_92 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,781) Oct 30, 2015 Massachusetts
    Pooh-Bah Society

  16. Macsimus

    Macsimus Zealot (740) Feb 19, 2014 North Carolina
    Trader

    Awesome news and all the best to Tree House - it is good to see folks who do things the right way get rewarded. Cheers!
     
  17. chuckgietzen

    chuckgietzen Initiate (0) Nov 10, 2014 Michigan

    This is awesome! Honestly, their beers have been some of the best I have ever had. Hopefully distro will look good.

    and I don't think quality will be sacrificed with this expansion either....
     
  18. TychoNDC

    TychoNDC Initiate (0) Jan 7, 2013 Colorado

    Congratulations to Tree House for their success. They make some great beer and I look forward to it being more available. It's not fair to project Alpine-like issues, as TH will still be brewing all of their beer personally. I hope that with the expanded production, more people will go simply to try and enjoy their beer.
     
  19. LambicPentameter

    LambicPentameter Initiate (0) Aug 29, 2012 Nebraska

    That's pretty fascinating about the numbers for Epic--I don't think I realized just how big of a scale 125k really is. Although in fairness, that 125k for TH is touted as a "theoretical maximum", which I think is important to note. A more realistic number is probably 30k-50k (which is still admittedly huge compared to their current size).

    But for the sake of discussion, I wasn't looking at it as even having concrete plans to ever get to full capacity so much as taking advantage of their current situation. They seem to have the capital and lending clout right now to build their dream brewery--better to err on the side of caution and build more capacity than they could ever hope to use rather than getting to a point where they wish they had more capacity to expand. After all, depending on how they are funding this, it the cost of having unused capacity may be negligible in the long run compared to the cost of adding on more capacity at a later date. Based on the numbers you mentioned for Epic, I'd be stunned if Tree House ever got close to 100k/year.

    It sounds to me like control is an important element, and they're going to have two things to think long and hard about for this to work:

    1) Ramping up production levels while maintaining quality. As several people have mentioned, there isn't really an example of the style of beer they produce being scaled up to this level. But it also sounds like a lot of the capacity in their brewhouse might be used to figure out just how to tweak things so that their beers retain their desired character. It sounds kind of crazy, but is it possible that they use part of that production capacity to do large-run test batches separate from their normal production and sales? I dunno--that seems like it would get insanely expensive really quick, but who knows.

    2) Determining what kind of distribution allows their beer to maintain its character while also reaching an optimal number of people. And to your point, I don't think they are ever going to be distributing to 25 states. But number of distributed states can be misleading when it comes to production capacity--if I had to guess, I'd say the demand for Tree House in their home state far exceeds the demand for Epic in any of its states, and that would remain true even if Epic pulled back distribution to only distribute in their home state. Given the popularity of Tree House, it's not unfeasible to think that they could distribute that capacity in a much smaller geographic area (one that is also in a fairly populous region). I think The Alchemist's annual production is about 9,000 barrels, and they don't do growler fills, which adds some supply, although I have no idea how much.

    Regardless, the entire thing is pretty wild. I'm going to love seeing how this all plays out. Given their massive popularity, a move in this vein was probably inevitable at some point. The only question was going to be just how far they'd take it.
     
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  20. ChrisMyhre

    ChrisMyhre Initiate (0) Sep 15, 2013 Massachusetts

    The first big Treehouse expansion was incredibly well thought out, careful and resulted in the core beers tasting just as good as ever. They had lots of new beers at launch while they dialed in their new system, alter ego, lights on, etc... I imagine they will do the same with the 2017 brewery. Hop contracts are likely the biggest issue, but it isn't like they are rushing things which should help.
     
    Johnct likes this.
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