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In the off season, they should see plenty of patronage from people living on the Cape and in SE Mass. I mean, people are already trekking to the Charlton location and lining up in droves year round, why wouldn't they also do it in a more popular area?
I haven't been keeping up with the news about the Sandwich location. Will it definitely be open all year long?
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Originally Posted by Beachcomber4
As always I appreciate your perspective. On a positive? note LOL I know I will have many more visitors with Tree House in town. It's a guarentee the kids will come home for the holidays. I've also considered what it could mean if I ever wanted to rent out my house. We purposely bought in a beach neighborhood thinking of ROI but this will make it even more attractive to a certain demographic and for longer than just the summer season.
My parents have a house in Mashpee. So, you'll definitely see me there.
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Originally Posted by lrfox
It's true that the pressure is higher now to leave a mark on people. However, I think that "uniqueness" is A thing that people love, not necessarily THE thing. I'd make the case that the #1 thing people look for is simply quality. They want good beer above all else. The rest is just sort of extra. It may help (or the lack of it may keep breweries from tapping their full potential), but it's all secondary to the quality of the product.
It seems a big thing in the beer industry right now is scarcity. People want what they can't have as the old saying goes. Breweries have been doing this for a while now with limited releases and one day releases. Three Floyds did it. Even Sam Adams did it for a long time with Utopias and their other smaller batch beers. This is just a little bit of a different spin on it. It's almost like 1 day releases 365 days a year. Great beer you can only get if you come to the brewery. Personally, I'm tired of this model and I would love to roll down to the liquor store in the center of town 5 minutes away and get Tree House or Hill Farmstead or something of that ilk. I've done the drive to these places and it gets old real fast. I do absolutely love HF though and drive there whenever I'm staying in VT but would love to have it more frequently.
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Originally Posted by timberline742
Same with me. No use for a full case. Only time I even want a 4 pack is when Long Live (wisely) does mixed four packs with stouts and IIPAs. But even then, rarely. I get the barrel aged stuff to cellar, and have been doing layaway on sours at Foam. But otherwise, no socializing = almost no beer drinking.
I don't drink that often either which really demotivates me to make the drive to these places.
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Originally Posted by FCMA
A couple quick inaccuracies to correct in this thread. Tree House started in Brimfield, not Monson. They moved to Monson due to a zoning dispute with a NIMBY neighbor I believe, the miserable kind who got mad that his 5-ac or so zoning safe space was lightly intruded upon and this was even before TH had become massively popular (which happened in Monson). . . Maybe the miserable Brimfield nematode was on to something to get them off his lawn.
Your beer landed on my porch . . . it's my beer now!!!
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
My grandfather’s time was the end of prohibition. He was chief engineer at the Dawson Brewery in New Bedford. The guy wearing a coverall in the company photos where the rest of the leadership was wearing suits. In 1935, 75% of the market was draft beer and there were 600-something breweries. In terms of the history of beer, the huge brewery oligopoly of canned and bottled beer has been a pretty small blip on the timeline.
A lot of that had to do with the fact that the technology for mass distribution didn't exist for a long time. It wasn't too long ago that Coors was a regional brewery and people visiting CO would be begged to bring some back with them. Canning/bottling is much more advanced now and so is refrigeration. Massive, national breweries really started gaining steam in the 50's/60's I believe. They started to lose a little market share in the last 20 years or so and that's why they're buying up the little guys. More moderate size breweries are combining now too with brewers like Sam Adams and Dogfish Head merging a couple years back.
It seems a big thing in the beer industry right now is scarcity. People want what they can't have as the old saying goes. Breweries have been doing this for a while now with limited releases and one day releases.
TH is guilty of this too. They have their bread and butter beers, but once in a while they will release a 1-per-customer porter from a 1 per year batch and charge you $18 or so for it. Oh, you also need to buy another case to hit that 1 case minimum.
I haven't been keeping up with the news about the Sandwich location. Will it definitely be open all year long?
I actually don't remember reading that in the article, so I may just be assuming. In any case, I'm sure they could do well year round in Sandwich, but I guess we'll see.
Quote:
It seems a big thing in the beer industry right now is scarcity. People want what they can't have as the old saying goes. Breweries have been doing this for a while now with limited releases and one day releases. Three Floyds did it. Even Sam Adams did it for a long time with Utopias and their other smaller batch beers. This is just a little bit of a different spin on it. It's almost like 1 day releases 365 days a year. Great beer you can only get if you come to the brewery. Personally, I'm tired of this model and I would love to roll down to the liquor store in the center of town 5 minutes away and get Tree House or Hill Farmstead or something of that ilk. I've done the drive to these places and it gets old real fast. I do absolutely love HF though and drive there whenever I'm staying in VT but would love to have it more frequently.
This is true, though both TH and HF have flagships essentially always available that are absolutely top notch. I just wish you didn't have to go to the brewery to get them.
I'm torn on this approach. On one hand, I'm with you in wishing that some of the better limited release stuff from my favorite, hard to reach breweries was available all the time at my corner store. On the other hand, I think the limited release stuff (often dubbed "experimental") is often limited release for a reason (limited brewing capacity, ingredient availability, production time - especially barrel aged stuff, etc). Especially for some of the smaller breweries. But some of it is clearly strategic. Alchemist for years was really holding back on Heady Topper and Focal Banger production/distro even though they have that massive facility and don't produce a ton of variety. Now you can't walk into any convenience store in VT and find cases of it at any given time. You can even occasionally find it in other states. But another VT favorite, Foam, has really embraced distribution. You can find most of their new releases at stores all over VT. They're even shipping orders now. It's really nice not to have to make the trek to Burlington each time I go to VT if I want foam. I wish HF would follow suit.
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I don't drink that often either which really demotivates me to make the drive to these places.
Same here. Thankfully, my girlfriend has family in VT (<10 minutes from Lawson's) so we get up there quite a bit in a normal year (and a few times during COVID) and I always grab mixed singles (love that most stores offer them). But during COVID, we've limited it to local spots. Mostly Channel Marker which is top notch and sells single cans so we can mix/match, but also Trillium and occasionally Vitamin Sea for a four pack. Just not worth it to drive far for a handful of beers. We found a great local shop about a 2 minute walk from our condo that has an incredible selection (really rare stuff) and offers a pretty good single can selection (local stuff as well as stuff from Omnipollo, Equilibrium, Aslin, and others). We've made friends with the beer guy who tips us off to what's coming in on any given day and it's been awesome.
TH is guilty of this too. They have their bread and butter beers, but once in a while they will release a 1-per-customer porter from a 1 per year batch and charge you $18 or so for it. Oh, you also need to buy another case to hit that 1 case minimum.
I was aware of that. That's scarcity upon scarcity iMO. Reminds me of when people used to wait in line for concert tickets. I don't play that game. There are few things that I value enough that I would spend my entire day procuring it.
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Originally Posted by lrfox
I actually don't remember reading that in the article, so I may just be assuming. In any case, I'm sure they could do well year round in Sandwich, but I guess we'll see.
I could see them staying open all year. Their current location is basically in the middle of nowhere and people go there. I don't see why the Cape Cod location wouldn't also be a destination. It will just be a ton busier in the summer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lrfox
This is true, though both TH and HF have flagships essentially always available that are absolutely top notch. I just wish you didn't have to go to the brewery to get them.
That's still scarcity marketing IMO. If there's only one place that you can get it or a limited number of places then it's still scarce. Sure, you can get Julius any day of the week. You just have to spend an hour in your car to get there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lrfox
I'm torn on this approach. On one hand, I'm with you in wishing that some of the better limited release stuff from my favorite, hard to reach breweries was available all the time at my corner store. On the other hand, I think the limited release stuff (often dubbed "experimental") is often limited release for a reason (limited brewing capacity, ingredient availability, production time - especially barrel aged stuff, etc). Especially for some of the smaller breweries. But some of it is clearly strategic. Alchemist for years was really holding back on Heady Topper and Focal Banger production/distro even though they have that massive facility and don't produce a ton of variety. Now you can't walk into any convenience store in VT and find cases of it at any given time. You can even occasionally find it in other states. But another VT favorite, Foam, has really embraced distribution. You can find most of their new releases at stores all over VT. They're even shipping orders now. It's really nice not to have to make the trek to Burlington each time I go to VT if I want foam. I wish HF would follow suit.
HF is absolutely wonderful and they're definitely my favorite all around brewery. If I'm in Stowe or at Smugs then I'll drive the 45 minutes up there to stock up. From Needham, it's a 4+ hour drive. No thanks! Driving 15 minutes to Trillium in Canton isn't a bad alternative to have though.
I haven't been keeping up with the news about the Sandwich location. Will it definitely be open all year long?
My parents have a house in Mashpee. So, you'll definitely see me there.
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Fantastic! We are hearing year round. It makes sense given their popularity. They are buying up real estate all over the Town Neck area for parking etc. Sandwich has always had the highest percentage of year round residents and was more a long weekend destination. In the last couple of years we've seen a huge influx investors renting out homes on Air BnB and VRBO and people vacationing here rather than the traditionally more popular Cape Cod vacation communities. IT will be interesting to see how the crazed real estate market will impact that as so many people are buying up homes to move here or turning their summer/rental properties into year round abodes.
Fantastic! We are hearing year round. It makes sense given their popularity. They are buying up real estate all over the Town Neck area for parking etc. Sandwich has always had the highest percentage of year round residents and was more a long weekend destination. In the last couple of years we've seen a huge influx investors renting out homes on Air BnB and VRBO and people vacationing here rather than the traditionally more popular Cape Cod vacation communities. IT will be interesting to see how the crazed real estate market will impact that as so many people are buying up homes to move here or turning their summer/rental properties into year round abodes.
Completely off subject but . . . YES!! Real estate on Cape Cod seems to be on fire. Where my parents' summer home is there's a lot of building going on and the new homes are selling like hot cakes. I have a client buying a home there too and he waited just a bit too long and the house he REALLY wanted sold before he made up his mind.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skeddy
it is good beer, I've been to the brewery and it's like a cult following.
It is, but a fair amount of that "cult" has been flippers.
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