Tree House Brewing

The Magic (of) Tree House
Tree House Brewing, Woodstock
November 2024

The first half of this page is a cut and paste from my page about this place when it was just a cidery. Since I separate cideries from breweries, there simply must be two separate pages on CTMQ.

I’m at a bit of a loss here. On the one hand, there’s too much for me to say about Tree House The Company but on the other hand, I want to keep this page relatively simple and clean. That’s how this outpost of the Massachusetts brewing juggernaut operates, and that’s what makes it so great to me.

But there’s no way I can write about a Tree House property without giving some background on Tree House Brewing Company. Many articles have been written about the brewery over the years and you can go spend hours reading about their success. Books will be written about Tree House. Future MBA’s will study their meteoric and unique rise.

I say that with absolute sincerity. The Tree House story is, quite simply, incredible. This will likely surprise many readers, but the only time I’ve ever visited a Massachusetts Tree House brewery was in 2012. Ten years, and many millions of dollars of profit for them later, I visited their farm and cidery in Woodstock. Twelve years later I visited their brewery, which opened later, on the same site.

The story of how they got from there to here is worth telling. (Although I’m hardly qualified to be the one to do it.)

Skip to the Woodstock brewery. You hate all things Massachusetts.

Tree House started on barely two acres in 2011 at Damien Goodreau’s house on a residential street in Brimfield, MA. There was an awesome tree house on the property. A true homebrew operation that went pro with a couple guitar playing friends with day jobs. The retail operation was only open on Saturdays. Typical 2011 startup brewery story, actually.

Damien and Nate Lanier made good beer. Really good beer… just as the craft beer “thing” started to really take off in 2012. They made true-to-style stouts and such, but what they did – arguably before anyone else and inarguably better than anyone else at the time – was essentially invent the style of beer that helped propel the entire craft brew industry into the stratosphere: The New England IPA.

Or at least what became known as such. In fact, it became known as such because Tree House (and The Alchemist I guess) is in New England. There are basically two ingredients that we can thank for this: the Citra hop and flaked oats. The Tree House boys decided to add more hops than others were doing, and they decided to use flaked oats to give their beers and entirely different look and feel. (There’s a little more to it than that, but you get the gist.)

Most Tree House IPAs were not bitter. At all. They were less transluscent and soft and juicy. These were new descriptors at the time. Their Julius IPA, which is still made today, vaulted to mythological status almost immediately. A higher ABV IPA that was orangey in color and was easy to drink and… just tasted… really, really unique citrusy and delicious.

There were rumors – for real – that they were adding orange juice to their beers. I heard this from a brewery owner back in 2012 or ’13. People just couldn’t believe what these new southern hemisphere hops could add to a flavor profile.

Tree House outgrew Brimfield and opened a much larger space in Monson, MA in 2013. It was too small for them before they even opened it. The word on Tree House was out and people from all over New England were descending on the brewery hours before opening every day. Traffic jams and 3 hour long lines were the norm. For beer. Very limited amounts of beer. Every. Dang. Day.

If you’re not familiar, I cannot begin to give you the full picture of what Tree House Monson was like when demand outpaced supply – a situation that went on for years. Because Tree House made the decision forever ago to simply never distribute their beer to bars, restaurants, or package stores. Save for a couple very early forays onto a top line here or there, and their recent availability at some Patriots games now a decade later, their beer is only sold at their Tree house locations. No stores, ever.

That single “no distribution” decision had industry-changing effects across the nation. New breweries would look at Tree House and say, “Hey, I can be successful without entering into distribution contracts. I can make all the profit on my beer and not have any middlemen!” The “Tree House Model” will take up at least two chapters in that future business book. Heck, there may be a paragraph on how their all-in decision on the 16 oz can format led to future aluminum can shortages.

I think the initial decision to not distribute was because they simply couldn’t make enough beer fast enough to do so. Then, once they did make enough, they simply said “why bother?” So when they opened their massive $20 million resort-looking Charlton, MA brewery in 2017 – and then when they added on to it later – they still didn’t distribute their beer.

And when they opened locations in Sandwich and Deerfield, MA, they still didn’t distribute their beer – except to their Sandwich and Deerfield locations. And Tree House makes a LOT of beer. Tree House packaged and sold the most beer in Massachusetts in 2020 — not including Boston Beer Co./Sam Adams and Harpoon Brewery who distribute internationally — selling 41,500 barrels out of its Charlton brewery, according to data from the U.S. Brewers Association.

Those sales figures make Tree House the top-selling taproom in the country. And yes, it all started in one guy’s garage in 2011. People have tried to run their numbers and their profits and, well, they’ve done very well for themselves. And, notably, you can’t find anyone saying a bad thing about the brand or the owners. Ever. They’ve managed their astronomic success incredibly well and they deserve it.

They’ve remained humble and have always tried to be stewards of the land and their cheeky hippie vibe has never wavered. When Nate used oats and added the hops into the whirlpool (or whatever) and didn’t flinch at the hazy look of his early beers like Julius (originally called “Citra” by the way) and Haze because he liked the way they tasted, he had no idea that his beers would sell for $60 on the secondary market. That a new language and gig economy would pop up in the driveway of the Monson location. “Mules,” “hauls,” “secondary”… Dudes would bring disguises to try to roll through the line twice to double their allotment in order to sell them on the secondary (black) market. (Mules were friends that were brought along for the same purpose.)

Many, many hundreds of start-up breweries have tried to copy the Tree House model. NEIPA-heavy tap lists, 16 ounce cans with cute messages printed on the bottom, no distribution, etc. The non-bitter and slightly hazy qualities that Tree House perfected evolved elsewhere into overly sweet lactose NEIPAs and thick, pulpy beers. That’s an evolutionary dead-end, but the mutation started in Brimfield. Of that I’m convinced.

Today, you can visit Charlton and buy more Tree House beer than you could ever want. You can chill by a fire pit and enjoy conversation. Sandwich and Deerfield have alleviated the crowds in Charlton and when their expansive beer halls opens at The Tewksbury Country Club in Tewksbury MA, I think we may have peak Tree House. (Never. They’re building out in Saratoga Springs, NY for a 2025 opening.)

Tree House Brewing Company is an impossibly impressive story. I don’t care what you think about beer or how stupid it was for people to wait hours in lines for tiny allotments of $8 cans of beer… you must admire the company for what they’ve built.

Which brings us to the thing they’ve built in Woodstock. Because while the vibe is the same, the Tree House Brewery here is very different from the Massachusetts joints – but really only because of the farm and the cidery.

When this place opened, it had a weird “Only Tree House Could Get Away With This Nonsense” appointment system. You had to go online, select a date and a time block, pre-order your ciders that you’ve likely never had, and show up. That whole thing disappeared some time in 2023 and now you can just go when you want to go and buy what you want to buy.

And that now includes beer. (And coffee, and cider, and seltzer, and shirts, hoodies, hats, cheese sets, puzzles…)

Because Tree House doesn’t distribute in any traditional sense, and because state-to-state distribution laws are often draconian, the brewery couldn’t just sell its beer that they brewed in Massachusetts. Even if Massachusetts is literally only 10 minutes north.

They quietly brought in some tanks and began brewing beer in 2023. I don’t keep up with brewery news much anymore, but I think this was all done pretty quietly. I don’t know why they did this, as Woodstock was always going to be their chill spot. A farm and a cidery in a stunning pastoral setting. No crazy beer lines or releases or anything. Maybe too many people went there looking for beer and not $18 bottles of fancy cider with ingredients they never heard of?

Nah, Tree House wouldn’t care about that. My guess is they added the beer brewing just because they can. And why not?

They started with just a couple styles, a lager and maybe a stout or something. I forget. But that’s all I expected when I popped in a couple years after my initial visit.

I was very, very wrong.

While there’s nowhere near the variety that you’ll find at a Massachusetts Tree House, there were six beers on tap and maybe 8 available in cans. All these beers were brewed here, include Tree House flagships Haze and Green. That’s right fanboys, they brew Haze and Green (I just looked as I write this a few weeks after visiting and yeah, there’s Julius) here. Every beer sold here is brewed here, per law.

I arrived shortly after opening and was the third person there. The other two were outside and down the hill enjoying the day. In other words, I was alone in a Tree House brewery with one employee, with my pick of eight different Tree House beers. There is a Twilight Zone feeling to all of this, yes. I know this is the Quiet Corner of Connecticut – and they brew a table beer here called Quiet Corner – but gosh darn, this might be one of the best kept secrets in the state.

Which makes no sense since we’re talking about one of the most heralded New England businesses of the last decade.

I got a pint of Nomad, their Czech dark lager. The guy working seemed a little confused as to why I went with the low alcohol dark lager after he told me several times they just put Very Green and Green on draft. Like, who goes to Tree House when Very Green is fresh on tap and… gets something else entirely? I do, that’s who.

And I very much enjoyed my beer while I marveled at the fact they sell Tree House Woodstock puzzles and a Tree House cheese set, among other things. What a juggernaut.

My initial intent was to walk out with all the “Woodstock beers.” I was told that they’re all Woodstock beers. I said I wanted the ones with Woodstock in their names. I was then told I’d have to purchase four of each one. I wasn’t in the mood to drop 80 bucks on beer, however, and selected the Woodstock Solero, a pilsner. They still seem to focus on Pilsners here, as there are three different ones bearing the Woodstock imprint at the time of this writing.

No one came in during my visit though two cars were driving up the long entry road as I was walking the trails here. Yes, that’s right, there are trails.

I had other things to do out here in the northeast corner of the state, so I didn’t stick around long at all.

Everyone and anyone can have an enjoyable time out here, whether you’re a drinker or not. Tree House Woodstock is such a gem and Connecticut is lucky to have them.

Tree House Woodstock
CTMQ’s Visit to Tree House Orchard & Farm Fermentory
CTMQ Hikes the Tree House Trails
CTMQ’s Breweries and Brewpubs