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Forbes
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
5 Breweries That Are Serving Some Of The Best IPAs
Green is an IPA from Tree House Brewing Co. that is ranked by many beer drinkers as one of the world's best. It is pictured here on the right at one of Tree House's locations Sandwich, Massachusetts. Erik Ofgang It's a great time to be an IPA fan. The style has come to dominate craft beer sales and culture and hop heads have a wide variety of IPAs from which to choose at nearly every brewery. While summer is not traditionally seen as IPA season, modern IPA varieties like fruited sour IPAs, hazies and even more traditional IPAs that feature tropical fruit notes are some of my favorite summertime sippers. The breweries below were selected because they offer some of the best and most refreshing IPAs I've ever tasted anywhere. All these breweries produce IPAs I love and which I recommend seeking out, even if that requires visiting each brewery in person. Tree House Brewing Co. is producing some of the most highly rated and refreshing IPAs. (File photo: SARATOGA, SPRINGS, NY - JANUARY 15: The Tree House Brewing Company on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. Photo Credit: Jim Franco/Albany Times Union via Getty Images.) Houston Chronicle via Getty Images Some of the best and highest-rated IPAs in the world are brewed at the acclaimed Tree House Brewing Co., which started in Massachusetts but now has multiple locations including ones in New York and Connecticut. Tree House didn't invent the hazy or New England IPA, but boy, did they help popularize it. The brewery's IPA offerings are bursting with hop aroma but generally have low bitterness and soft and pillowy mouthfeels. Tree House produces some of the most sought-after IPAs on the globe, so you can't go wrong with any of them, but some particularly acclaimed varieties include Julius, Haze, Green and Doppelganger — those last two are always favorites of mine, but if I'm being honest, so are the others. For IPA fans in search of refreshing summer hoppy goodness, a pilgrimage to Tree House is a must if they find themselves in the Northeast. Tree House now has multiple locations in Massachusetts, one in Saratoga, New York, and a farm location in Woodstock, Connecticut. In the summer, it's hard to beat the Cape Cod location on the water in Sandwich, Massachusetts. DDH Pillow earned bragging rights as one of the best IPAs brewed in 2024 after it took home a gold medal at this year's Great American Beer Festival competition. James Sullivan Last year Highland Park Brewery received the most gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival in large part thanks to the strength of its IPAs. The brewery's hazy IPAs are everything a hazy IPA should be: bursting with hop aroma and tropical fruit flavor and gentle, velvet mouthfeel. They also produce other types of world class IPAs. What Are Highland Park Brewery's Best IPAs? Highland Park took home gold medal awards at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival for Competition, an American-style IPA, DDH Pillow, a hazy imperial IPA, and Timbo, a hazy pale ale, which is a similar style to an IPA. All these beers are must-trys, and the DDH Pillow was one of the best IPAs I had in 2024. This beer has also won multiple gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival. Who Should Consider Visiting Highland Park? Highland Park is not only a must-visit for IPA fans; it also is perfect for baseball fans. Located less than two miles from Dodger Stadium, it's a fun spot to pregame or celebrate a Shohei Ohtani home run. Hudson Valley Brewery, Beacon, New York Hudson Valley Brewing Co. uses fruit to create refreshing sour IPAs. Erik Ofgang Hudson Valley Brewery is a beloved New York brewery that offers some excellent hazy IPAs that offer the tropical fruit and soft mouthfeel you'd expect. But they made this list thanks to their sour IPAs, which burst with tart fruit flavors, have very limited bitterness, and provide a tasting experience that is a far cry from your average IPA, but is also a must-try drinking experience. What Are Hudson Valley's Best IPAs? Its fruited sour IPA line has some real gems, including Peach Silhouette, which took home a gold medal at last year's Great American Beer Festival—though be warned, as fantastic as this beer is, it drinks more like a sour beer than an IPA. Another favorite of mine, is Double Peach Silhouette, a much more peach-forward beer that is bursting with sweet juice flavors and one of the most refreshing beers I've had. Who Should Visit The Hudson Valley Brewery? Anyone who is interested in IPAs and sours should make a trip to Hudson Valley Brewery. Its home in Beacon is an easy train ride from New York City, and it's got a wonderful brewery space that is a popular spot on weekends. Beacon itself is also a great day trip destination with plenty of hiking opportunities and riverside views. Lawson's Finest Liquids, Waitsfield, Vermont Sip of Sunshine is a classic refreshing IPA from Vermont Lawson's Finest Liquids The thing I love about the IPAs at Lawson's Finest Liquids is that they serve as a bridge between the more traditional bitter IPAs and the fruit-bomb, low-bitterness hazy IPAs that have dominated craft beer sales over the last decade or so. Lawson's Finest's best IPAs are bursting with summer-appropriate fruit flavors but also have some real, old-school hop bite. What Are Lawson's Best IPAs? One of my longtime favorites is Sip of Sunshine. Served in a bright yellow can with tropical flavors that live up to its sunshine-inspired name, it's a beer I always enjoy. Craft beer fanatics will also want to try IPAs such as Little Sip, Hazy Rays and Double Sunshine. Who Should Consider Visiting Lawson's Finest? A trip here should be part of any beer lover's Vermont IPA itinerary. I love to visit Vermont in the fall and drink my way through foliage season. Maine Beer Co., Freeport, Maine Maine Beer Co. is known for producing more traditional but still rereshing IPAs. In this May 7, 2015 file photo, craft beers are served at the Maine Beer Company in Freeport, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) Associated Press The Maine Beer Co. has long been a beloved spot for IPAs, and other styles. Back in the early 2010s, its signature IPA, Lunch, used to draw crowds when it would appear on tap. It's still a great option that predates—and offers a refreshing alternative—to the fruit-forward hazy IPAs, which are more common these days. What Are Maine Beer Co.'s Best IPAs? The aforementioned Lunch remains among its most popular and refreshing IPAs. For me, it's one of those beers I never regret opening or ordering. Another wonderful and equally well regarded option is Dinner. Both beers feature clean, refreshing flavors and even some pine notes, a once common IPA flavor that has become rare these days. Who Should Visit Maine Beer Co.? Any IPA fans exploring the state of Maine should stop in here. It's one of the OGs of the new school craft brewing movement and offers a fun visitor experience, and of course, plenty of summer-appropriate, refreshing IPAs.
Forbes
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Tree House Brewing Is The Largest Brewery You've Never Heard Of
One of the many patios at Tree House Brewing in Charlton, MA. On a Saturday afternoon, trying to get into Tree House Brewing Company's Charlton, Massachusetts main facility to buy their beer, coffee, spirits, canned cocktails and NA seltzers can feel a bit like being at Disney World or waiting to get into a VIP club. People with dollies (the brewery itself provides commercial grade dollies for use) carry multiple cases of beers to their cars and those cases can be upwards of $120 each for 24 beers. The line to pick up beer can stretch for a long way inside along the side of the balcony that overlooks the brewhouse and canning facility. Tree House does not sell its beer to bars or beer shops; they have seven locations to pick up their drinks in three states. Their beer is sometimes available at New England Patriots home games at Gillette Stadium in special 19.2 oz. cans. They also will have a beer garden at the PGA Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, CT on June 16-22 next to the 14th hole. The 'about us' on their Youtube Page calls themselves, 'the largest direct-to-consumer brewery on Earth.' Tree House (named after the tree house on their first property) opened in 2011 in the town of Brimfield, MA before moving to Monson, MA, a town close to the Connecticut border. Tree House outgrew that spot as well with lines stretching for hours just to buy to-go beer, especially of their New England style IPAs. Julius, their most popular flagship IPA, quickly became what every beer geek was talking about in New England and beyond. First brewed in 2012, it was one of the first hazy IPAs (also called New England IPA or NEIPA thanks in part to Julius) that eschewed high hop bitterness for a more sweet, fuller palate along with bursting citrus and tropical flavors that come from using the hops later in the boil/fermentation process. 13 years later, hazy IPAs are now one of the most popular beer styles in the world. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - MARCH 11: Interior dining area at the Tree House Brewing Company's new Saratoga taproom on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, on Route 9 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. This is Tree House's seventh location. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images) Seeing a need to expand, the brewery built its flagship $18.5 million Charlton location in 2017 and then expanded, first in Woodstock, CT in 2020 where they make hard cider and also operate a small tasting room. Tree House then expanded to Sandwich, MA on the vacationland area of Cape Cod in 2021. Then in 2022 to Central Massachusetts with its sprawling Deerfield, MA location which hosts concerts with big performers like Gary Clark Jr. and Trampled by Turtles. They then bought the Tewksbury Country Club in Tewksbury, MA just north of Boston in 2022 and first turned it into an 'outpost' go-to pick up spot and then opened the full tasting room in June 2023. In 2024, Tree House created a pick up location and kiosk in the Prudential Central mall in the heart of Boston which also has a seasonal beer garden open Wednesday to Saturday. Recently, in early 2025, they opened their first taproom location in the resort town of Saratoga Springs, NY—a 23,000 sq. ft. tasting facility. Sandwich, Tewksbury, Deerfield, Saratoga all serve pizza. The brewery also has a thriving YouTube page (46,000+ subscribers) where Tree House Brewing Company's owner and CEO Nathan Lanier taste tests macro lagers and other beverages, showcases hop picking trips to New Zealand and shows off his tricked out Tree House camper van. Lanier himself has an affable, bro-ish air on camera and clearly enjoys making these videos. Tree House Brewing Company as well has almost 250,000 Instagram followers. Despite this fame, many casual drinkers may not be familiar with Tree House due to their disrupter type direct-to-consumer approach. A customer uses a brewery provided dolly to carry his haul to his car during a Wednesday afternoon at Tree House Brewing Company in Charlton, MA. Their flagship location and brewery is based in Charlton, MA, an easy stopover off the Massachusetts Turnpike in Central Massachusetts 56 miles west of Boston. At any time, the 53,000 sq. ft. facility is open seven days a week. Food trucks outside serve customers or many patrons bring a picnic lunch or dinner to snack on. I went on a Wednesday afternoon on a beautiful sunny June day, which I recommend as weekends tend to be too chaotic. The crowd was subdued with many dogs on leash (the place is very dog friendly), people of all ages quietly looking at the phones/working or young couples with strollers talking under the shade of the wide umbrellas that dot the area. Once inside, there are two bars, one that caters to IPAs and stouts and the 'classics bar' which serves lagers and other classic beer styles like brown ales or English styles. Although known for IPAs, Tree House Brewing Company's popularity allows them to expand to a full range of classic beer styles as well as rarer, less brewed beers like the indigenous California common to a full complement of smoked lagers. The IPA and stout bar has 35 beers on draft while the classics bar has 38 beers. A 16 oz. pilsner dry hopped with Chinook was $9. I don't know of any other brewery in the world that has 72 of their own offerings on draft at any given time. The brewhouse which supplies the beer for Tree House's various taprooms. In 2023, the brewery made just shy of 40,000 barrels. This would make them one of the 100 biggest breweries in the U.S. Most small breweries in America make less than 3000 BBLs. To order beer to go, you can order on your phone via their website or order off the few electronic kiosks just inside the front door. The to-go options are massive with 23 different double IPAs to choose from! The list is a dizzying array of over 100 different beers to choose from and that doesn't include the canned coffee, canned cocktails and other drinks! So if you are in the area, Tree House Brewing Company at any of their locations is worth a visit. Their star continues to rise and the future looks bright for this direct-to-consumer craft brand.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I've Tried Hundreds of Craft IPAs. This Cheap, Easy-to-Find Beer Is My Go-to in a Pinch
I write about beer for a living, which means I taste a lot of the stuff. Most of it is great, especially IPAs. I can rattle off a list of bangers made with everything from foraged spruce tips to experimental hops that don't even have names yet, whether made by iconic industry trailblazers or under-the-radar nano-producers. But for all the obscure IPAs we insufferable beer geeks hunt down and boast about—bonus points if you can pinpoint all five hops in the aroma or remember the entire three-sentence name of that Evil Twin hazy—there's something undeniably irresistible about what you might refer to as a 'supermarket IPA.' Supermarket IPAs are those well-known bottles and cans from big independent craft breweries or their corporate-owned counterparts that have resources to earn shelf space in national chains. For example, one of the founders of Tree House Brewing in Massachusetts includes options from Lagunitas, Stone, and Goose Island in his supermarket IPA taste test video. In short, a supermarket IPA is there when you need it, wherever you are. You know what you're getting is consistently good in flavor and mouthfeel, and they're great for introducing craft beer to new drinkers. As a beer fan since 2008 and beer writer since 2017, I've had countless IPAs. When I'm in a situation where I need something tasty, cheap, and available—a crowd-pleaser for a party, decent brew at the limited airport bar, or convenience store pickup in a craft beer desert—I reach for a Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing every time. Sierra Nevada launched Hazy Little Thing in 2018. It was a big move for a seminal brewery that had built their reputation on a different interpretation of hoppy. 'Hazy Little Thing broke the mold at Sierra Nevada and marked a mindset shift for us,' says Isaiah Mangold, Sierra Nevada's head innovation brewer. 'The explorative process we went through as we developed that beer unlocked so many ideas and possibilities that we had never considered before, because at that time we only knew what we had always known: that IPAs by nature were meant to be sharp, bitter, and clear.' Smooth, sweet, and juicy, Hazy Little Thing was born to be its own offshoot brand, similar to the Voodoo Ranger series from fellow OG New Belgium Brewing. These brands were made for supermarket-IPA status. With their big, fruity flavors and splashy can art, they appeal to anyone wandering the aisle—whether they have an Untappd account or not. 'The Hazy Little Thing flagship has become ubiquitous,' says beer judge and writer Alexander Gates. 'There are lots of other sub-brands competing in this space, namely hazy IPAs at a lower price point…while Hazy Little Thing isn't as full-flavored as [Sierra Nevada's] Celebration or Torpedo, [it's] more approachable to people that may not like an aggressively bitter beer.' Hopped with citra, magnum, simcoe, comet, mosaic, and el dorado, Hazy Little Thing delivers a pleasant blend of orange gummy candies and overripe tropical fruit with some nice bitter pine and tea notes for balance. It does so with a full, velvety mouthfeel that's not too heavy or filling. It's a perfect middle-of-the-road option—not too explosively hoppy or smoothie-like for hazy IPA newbies, but flavor-forward and substantial enough to satisfy a hazy IPA fan. At 6.7 percent ABV in a standard-sized 12-ounce can, its buzz isn't overpowering, either. The proof is in the numbers for Hazy Little Thing's appeal. Per Nielsen data for 2024, it's the third ranked craft beer brand in the United States and the top-selling hazy IPA. Its success has blossomed into an entire portfolio featuring imperial, session, West Coast, and additional IPA 'Little Things,' nicknamed Big, Hoppy, Tropical, Rad, Dank, Cosmic, and Juicy. There's even a Wild Little Thing sour. The names, Gates notes, are another approachable feature. 'They're accurately described by their names, so they're also less pretentious and clear…whether [the consumer] has had a dank or juicy IPA before or not,' he says. The sub-brand has something for every kind of IPA fan at every level, no doubt. But the one that started it all, Hazy Little Thing, remains unrivaled in its crowd-pleasing quality.
