A few weeks ago, I was in balmy Springfield, Massachusetts enjoying a much-needed vacation with family and beer. It is integral in the dealings I have with my brother, who also enjoys a decent pint every now and then. We’ve always been able to bond over a frosty glass, enjoying the various flavors of beer as the styles evolved over the years.
This trip had been designed specifically to give me several days to myself, free of any responsibility but watching the dog. Handoff of my nephews to their Aunt K was made at Treehouse brewing, and when they were gone I was able to fully explore the property and beers on tap, without any weird ‘3 drink limit’ like they have here in New Mexico. It took me some time to get through a few samples, since Treehouse doesn’t do flights. You have to commit to full pints of double and triple IPAs to get the TH experience, and in the past there’s always been some pressure to get along to another place.
Having 40 miles of twisting Massachusetts 2-lane highway to navigate to get home, I paced myself and may have…I’m ashamed to say this….dumped some of the beer I didn’t particularly like in order to go get something different. I spent time on the phone and texting while I sipped, the weather having turned to shit in the week that I was there, making the outdoors area a no-go. I’ve never had the time to explore the trails, and it’s still on the checklist of things I’d like to do – but at least this visit I could really try some new beers.
Take some home!
Treehouse built itself from a literal garage brewing setup into a monster of a craft brewery – I’m not going to tell the whole TH story here, but a certain group of people in the central Massachusetts area claim to recall being fans of the place, and the head brewer/owner Nate, and talk about how coveted their cans were even back then. This is in the same region as legends like Lawsons, Long Trail, Harpoon, The Alchemist, 2Roads, and many others. I’ve been fortunate to go to these other breweries over the years, but the one thing that seperates Treehouse from those others is that they do not distribute. You cannot find their beer anywhere but the brewery and a few select locations, and they remain one of the only breweries, to my knowledge, to do this. The beer also remains pretty spectacular, but it begs the question- how does treehouse still retain this cache in a region where everything else is readily available at grocery and liquor stores?
Nowhere to sit
The problem with riding solo is that sometimes, you get shafted when looking for a place to sit. On this visit I was with some family until they left, and then I faced the dilemma: what to do next. The table filled up quickly when the others had left, leaving me surrounded by people I didn’t know who were more than happy to take my seat as soon as I stood up. There wasn’t much point in trying to save my space, that would’ve been weird and most likely pointless since CLEARLY families should have precedence over that strange dude sitting by himself with the keyboard….right? There is no bar to sit at, only a bunch of long tables, so as soon as I stood up I knew I would be wandering, pint in hand. And I would have to stand up eventually, since that first pint went down so quickly. Oh well.
As soon as I stood up, I tripped over a curled playmat someone had laid on the floor behind me. It wasn’t a smooth dismount. As I expected, the family closed around my seat quickly, and my curses went unheard as I walked away. These people were moving tables and throwing down blankets and setting up indoor picnics and generally taking up way more room than they needed, but I was brought to a realization: this is truly the future of beer culture. And it’s one of the reason Treehouse is running strong.
WUT
25 years ago, at the dawn of the modern craft movement, when brewery numbers started to shoot upwards, you weren’t likely to see entire families – literal generations – clustering around a long table at your local brewery, unless they were also a restaurant and it was someone’s birthday, maybe. Many breweries were only slightly removed from the local bar, in actual location if not spirit. A trip to a place like Treehouse would quickly dispell any of those old notions of smelly breweries in dirty old industrial locations, though, being all clean and shiney and natural light.
I’m now back in Albuquerque, sitting at a place called Lasso’s Lagers and Coffee, and it’s a clean downtown brewery without any hint of that old vibe. It’s clean, well lit, and the outside area is more than just a gravel side yard filled with cigg butts (it’s paved and the tables aren’t covered in carved graffiti). It’s not exactly famil;y-friendly, more of a hipster coffee joint, but it’s not hostile, either.
I was at Ex Novo’s Corrales location not long ago, and that spot is specifically tailored to families that want to hang outside in the roasting NM sun. They’ve got an expansive outdoor area, with a bar and bathrooms that’s perfect for letting little screamers tear around in the mud. While I enjoy my pints in relative quiet, the fact is that most people my age have two or three kids (or did at one point) and they also enjoy the beer. So they drag the whole family down to the tap room for a round or two, and the point is that it’s building up future generations of craft beer drinkers.
It’s not that they’re going to end up as lifelong alcoholics or anything sinister; What I’m saying is that these kids will grow to accept an afternoon at the brewery as normal family affairs as they get older. When they’re old enough, it’ll be a natural progression for them to end up at the brewery on a Friday night, instead of some club or other ‘drinking’ establishment. There will inevitably be problem drinkers and family issues, but at least you can sort of justify taking the kids to a brewery, instead of some dark bar down the street that literally doesn’t allow minors. So that’s a good thing..?
On a personal level, my own nephews don’t mind when I’m in town and we go to the Treehouse 40 minutes away, it’s almost like they know what to expect after all these years. When the weather is nice they can run around outside and play in the woods while the adults have quiet conversations and contemplate what’s for dinner. Most of the other breweries in the area offer decent food, as well, making for an easy win for everyone when it’s time to relax and eat. The Treehouse experience is just a more refined visit to many other popular breweries in the NE region, I suppose, but it comes across differently when you look at their sales volume.
Treehouse is crushing it. Most people walking away from one of their locations are also carrying a case or two of beer and a pile of merch. Let’s assume that, of the $9 per pint I paid recently, $2 goes to the service staff and the rest is straight revenue (and taxes, nerp). I don’t usually buy other brands by the case, to start with, so there’s a data point worth considering. The merch game is strong, covering the usual items, but also including coffee beans and pre-canned drinks as well as the very popular pre-canned cocktails that seemed to accompany the cases of beer much of the time.
So what’s the secret
Hard to tell, honestly. It’s so popular for so many reasons that it’s hard to pin any one down. The beer was great to excellent to begin with, by all accounts, and that certainly helped them get off the ground. An uncanny knack for marketing that beer also helped, spreading by word of mouth and some other media formats (but not the written word, oddly). They’re firmly established in the ranks of ‘family-friendly’ destination breweries in the NE corridor….I’m open to other speculation. Leave a comment on what you think it might be…