Trillium Brewing Company (December 2016)

Does anyone know if Trillium has any collaborations coming out in the near future???

 

The only one they've teased was a Stillwater collab they brewed while ago. Think it was a gose? They also put the Outside the Lines stout, which was an Omnipollo collab, into bourbon barrels. Not sure when that will be released...

 

I remember seeing on the Veil Instagram they brewed two beers at Trillium "one hoppy and one funky". The hoppy was IWantToBU but haven't seen the funky yet.

 

Don't forget the J. Wakefield they have barreled up for release this upcoming year.

 

Barrel-aged Outside the Lines? WHAT? YES! PLEASE!

Did they hold any of the Dusk Trill Dawn aside for barrel-aging?

 

IWantToBU was fantastic.

 

I hope so! I know Pot & Kettle is also in barrels. If they start putting out some great barrel aged stouts I can stop trading for them so I'll be a happy camper.

 

So wait, wait, wait, wait...

...wait...

We could find ourselves in 2017 with a single brewery in Canton that:

- Puts out arguably the nation's best hoppy beers at a case limit per beer
- Puts out fantastic stouts with a multitude of adjuncts, also at a case limit per beer
- Puts out some of the best sours I've ever had (low limits, long lines, but still...)
- AND has a (maybe) fantastic barrel-aging program?

And this brewery almost never has a line?
And it offers full pours on premises?
And I can drive there in 30 minutes?
Every day?

Jesus Christ, how spoiled are we?

 

Can't be beat in New England right now. Not by a long shot

 

Also remember that they are expanding wild/sour production.

 

I struggle to think of any brewery that ticks all those boxes. TG is whalez for days, but always a line and no scale. Alchemist is up there but has less variety and a 1 case per person limit. Never been to RR, but I'd imagine they can put up a fight on this with their excellent hops and sours.

 

Hill Farmstead on all counts except accessibility (which is pretty major).

 

Right, and IMO accessibility is the bow that ties Trillium's greatness together.

 

RR can compete with the sours and hops, but their stouts are not very impressive IMO, certainly not at the level of Trillium.

 

I really love Trillium when their stuff is hitting the mark, but inconsistency makes me hesitate to drive there now unless they have like several cans I want fresh. Just too many visits in the last two months with disappointing cans. The double dry hopped stuff seems to be ok still, but Melcher St from 11/2 and Vicinity from the Summer were wayyy off from what it was like in bottles. Also, I'm finding gross, spicy yeast chunks forming in almost all cans. Galaxy Fort Point and DDH Fort Point both had major sludge. That was there in the bottles as well but it was smooth and not chunky or spicy, more bearable like the stuff you'd see in a Bissell can.

So I really want your bullet list to be true in 2017! And add consistency to that list if so. If that's happening I'll drive there once a week. It's hard to tell with the hometown fans giving 5 caps to every check in.

 

To be honest with you, that's not been my experience - the only disappointing beer for me has been Never & Again (I still have a couple, holding out some semblance of hope that they might mellow over time). The last batch of Vicinity I had was good, and the last batch of DDH FPPA - probably the 11/2 one, I got it when IWantToBU came out - was really good.

But everyone has different experiences, and I've heard the stories of inconsistency. Haven't experienced it myself.

 

Same here. The only cans that did not impress me was Upper Case. I thought the DDH Summer was right up there with the best Trillium beers I've had. Very impressed with that on as well as the regular rotation beers.

 

I agree they have some consistency issues, and to me they seem to spike whenever they increase scale, then the issues die down over time. I find though that off batches are quickly discussed on social media, so if you join one of the facebook groups and check it before you go, it's pretty easy to know if you should avoid a batch. I agree you shouldn't have to, but to me it's a very small price to pay in consistency for the huge increase in availability.

The floaties are proteins and hop resins, not yeast, I saw JC make a post about this somewhere recently. I think people see this randomly in NE IPAs all the time, I haven't noticed too many in my own Trillium cans but I had a 4 pack of Epiphany where every can was like a snow globe. Maybe it depends when your specific can was filled relative to the batch? I haven't gotten any spicy taste from them though.

 

I know we're supposed to be talking about Trillium, but I've bought Epiphany 3-4 times and every time they've been clear(in terms on NE IPA's). I've been buying Substance since it was canned and I've seen that beer range from Miller Light clarity to quicksand. This style of beer just seems to be volatile...I guess that's the price you pay for unpasturized unfiltered beer. Makes me appreciate what The Alchemist do all the more.