Boston’s Three T’s
Tree House, Trillium, and True North
by BeachRock Bill
Around the same time SCCBB Bloggers Chauncey and Eleanor were visiting Connecticut, my crew (Wife Helen, Son Carl, Fiancé Cassie) and I were up the road on the coast just north of Boston. Officially, the reason for our visit was to celebrate the future nuptials with Cassie’s East Coast side of the family. Cassie’s father comes from a long line of New Englanders, including a rumored distant connection with the Putnam family, the notorious villains in the Salem Witch Trials, whose fabricated testimony sent scores of innocent souls to the gallows. Regardless, that was then and this is now, and Helen and I couldn’t be more thrilled about the upcoming marriage.
Unofficially, at least for yours truly, the highlight of the trip would be first time visits to two of the area’s breweries that helped put New England IPAs (aka Hazy IPAs) on the map–Tree House and Trillium. Spoiler alert. These two didn’t disappoint, but the surprise was finding a much newer and smaller operation that matched or surpassed the two legends in several styles.
Tree House’s Charlton Brewery
While Tree House has several tap rooms all over the Boston area, we were informed by Cassie’s beer savvy cousins that the main brewery, about 60 miles east of the city in Charlton, was a “must see”.
In a previous blog post about Stone’s big facility in Escondido, CA, I described Stone’s space as a “Gleaming Palace of Beerdom”. Well, Tree House Brewing Company is all that and more.
The impressive brewery sits on 70 acres abutting a wilderness area. There is a massive open indoor tasting room adjacent to the state-of-the-art 60 bbl brewing system with two large bars surrounded by rows and rows of picnic tables.
Outside is a beautiful large covered patio with more picnic tables, and an adjacent grassy knoll with dozens of Adirondack chairs perfect for sun bathing with a beer in hand. Being a rainy Tuesday afternoon, the place was pretty empty, but with crowd control barriers scattered around, it was obvious that Tree House regularly deals with HUGE crowds and long lines.
According to their website, Treehouse was founded in 2011, serving five-gallon batches out of a small red barn in Brimfield, Massachusetts. Five-gallon batches? That’s smaller than the homebrew setup I have in my garage. Somehow, Treehouse found a way to stay independent and still grow from that five-gallon Coleman cooler system into a multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art, 60-Barrel German-engineered brewhouse. Truly astounding.
To handle the large crowds, there are no cash or card transactions at the bars. All beer pours must be purchased ahead of time with smartphones, and QR codes are then scanned by the Beertenders for your pour. With this one price pre-pay system, the ABV of your choice dictates the size of the pour, which goes all the way up to 20 ounces. It’s an intricate system that was a little tough to figure out at first, but is pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it.
Tree House is obviously known for their New England IPAs. Their legendary Julius Hazy helped set the standard for the juicy style that is copied at breweries worldwide. Carl, Cassie, Helen and I headed up to the the Hazy pouring “Main” bar, and ordered half pours (a nice touch that they will split a pre-purchased ticket in two) of just about every hazy on the menu. With several beers in hand we headed outside under the massive outdoor covered patio to watch the downpour.
First Impressions
Of the Hazys we picked, Carl, Cassie, and I decided Haze, Green, and the double Very GGGGreen were our favorites. It was no surprise that Helen gravitated toward the higher octane brews of the round, a double called Daze, and a triple version of the flagship Julius called Breakfast Julius. B.J. was packed with citrusy juiciness, balanced perfectly with a subtle sweetness and booziness. Both were very good. Actually, all our pours were good, but maybe because of high expectations going in, we weren’t blown away with any of our first round selections.
Now we’re talking
To mix things up a bit for our second round, I headed inside to Tree House’s smaller “Classic” bar. Here I was greeted with an entire row of side pull taps. These “Lukr” taps originated from Czech beer culture, and are starting to filter into America’s Craft Beer scene. Delivering what is called a “smooth” pour, these taps make super tiny bubbles and a nitro-like pillowy head that can elevate most crisp Pilsners to another level. My Tree House Beertender steered me to a gin barrel aged (from Tree House’s distillery program) German Pilsner called Trail Gin Barrel Aged. Now I don’t know who had the idea to age a Pilsner in a gin barrel, but it was genius. This beer was like nothing I’d ever had before- crisp, dry with subtle notes of booze, juniper and barrel wood. This extremely unique lager was hands down voted the best beer of the night.
Bottom line, we had a really fun time at Tree House. We were glad to avoid the long lines and craziness by visiting on an uncrowded rainy weeknight, but I could definitely see myself sitting outside on a sunny day, people watching with beer in hand, enjoying that amazing view!
Trillium Brewing
We were staying about an hour north of Boston in Gloucester (“Glosta”), but had planned to spend an entire afternoon in the city to visit another acclaimed New England brewery in the Fort Point area of downtown Boston–Trillium Brewing. We found some street parking close by, but as we walked up to Trillium’s entrance we were crestfallen to see a “closed for private event” sign at the door. NOoooooo!!!!
The hostess recommended we try one of the brewery’s beer gardens scattered throughout the city during summertime, so we left our car in its coveted street parking space and walked the half mile over to Trillium’s Boston Commons Beer Garden.
The cozy Common beer garden had a very abbreviated list of Trillium beers, but there was enough on the board to please. Unfortunately, the only servings were pint pours in plastic cups, so we weren’t able to sample as much as we were hoping. From what we did try, everything was delicious.
Carl loved his crazy-named Tiny Chicken, a 5.6%ABV Pale Ale that was bitter and dry with a nice dank earth finish. The crowd favorite, maybe one of the top five beers of our whole trip, was a double dry-hopped version of Trillium’s flagship Fort Point Pale Ale; the Mozaic DDH Fort Point was moderately hazy, exceedingly juicy, and bursting with tropical pineapple and mango flavors. This beer checked all the boxes with a big full body and tons of aromatics. It was fantastic.
As we walked back to our car we decided to swing back to the brewery’s store to buy several different four packs to take home with us.
Ipswich’s True North Ale Company
Cassie’s father Kip, and his partner Rochelle, live in the historic coastal town of Ipswich. At the celebration dinner they threw for Carl and Cassie, Kip was serving a beer on draft that really blew me away. The beer was a low alcohol crushable Hazy called North Shore from a local brewery I had never heard of–True North Ale Company. We made plans to visit the very next day.
Opened in 2017 by the father and son team Gary and Jake Rogers, Ipswich’s True North brewery boasts a 15,000 sq. foot brewhouse with a comfortably sized indoor taproom and a separate event room. Being summer, there were outdoor seating tents set up, but we opted to feel the vibe inside and found some bench space in front of the bar. To start off, Kip and I ordered a flight of Hazys to share that included the beer I remembered from the party–North Shore. Coming in at a mere 4.7% ABV, this lightly hazed Pale Ale was bursting with tons of tangy citrus aroma and flavor. It is one of those perfect crushable “Go To” beers that should be in every beer drinkers fridge.
The other three Hazys in our flight, Ice Bucket, Shear Hoppiness, and Game Changer were also excellent. Wife Helen, as she always does, went with the Hazy that had the highest ABV on the board, Forest Haze. At only 7.7% ABV, she was skeptical she would like it it, but similar to its pale ales and single IPAs, True North somehow finds a way to pack a lot of mouthfeel and flavor at lower alcohol levels. Before she knew it, her full pour was gone.
True North isn’t just about the IPA. The board was filled with sours, Witbiers Belgians and, despite its name as an Ale Company, several lagers. Son Carl wanted to try the Mexican Lager. Despite the generic name, Cerveza was a delicious cerveza with a crisp dry mouthfeel leading into a faintly sweet masa-tinged finish. All it needed was a lime!
It was midday and we had places to go and people to see, so reluctantly we had to say good-bye to True North after only scratching the surface of its large eclectic menu. We can’t wait to visit next time we’re in town.
Time to say good-bye
We had a great week in New England. The beer did not disappoint. It’s clear the breweries in the area are masters of my favorite style, which bears the region’s name. Next time we’re in the area, we will give the Trillium Brewery another shot to really see what it’s all about. On the flip side, I think one visit to Tree House’s main location is enough for us, and we will be content to hit some of the smaller satellite locations closer to town. Finally, there was the True North. that embodies everything I love in a craft brewery- the cozy neighborhood vibe, friendly Beertenders, varied tap list, and memorably good beer.
In the end it turned out our eyes were a lot bigger than our suitcases. We left a case of our purchases behind for Cassie’s family to enjoy in our absence.
Thanks to Kip and Rochelle and the whole tribe of Putnam descendants for hosting us.
Until next time,
Cheers,
— BeachRock Bill
Instagram: @beachrockbill
Email: beachrockbill@gmail.com
Featured photo at the top of this blog post “New England Summer Sky” by Beachrock Bill.
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