Big Flavor Beers are the Name of the Game at Trillium Brewing

Pete Zuk​

Brewery Name: Trillium Brewing Company
Type of Brewery: Production Brewery

Location: 369 Congress St. Boston, MA 02210 (they also have a location in Canton, MA)

Website: http://www.trilliumbrewing.com/
Facebook: Trillium Brewing
Twitter: @trilliumbrewing
Instagram: @trilliumbrewing

Growlers: Yes; however, they are in Massachusetts, which forces you to purchase the growlers from the brewery (meaning they won't fill other breweries' growlers). Luckily all of their beers are available in bottles except some pilot batches.

The Beers: Trillium really is one of my favorite breweries. Their beers are top notch and have blown my mind ever since I had my first Fort Point Pale Ale. I actually have ranked them slightly higher than Tree House, but that really comes down to cosmetic preferences because both breweries make amazing soft, fruity, flavorful IPAs. We got 10 different beers from them, so here are a couple of our favorites:
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• Double Dry Hopped Melcher Street: A mosaic single hopped IPA that they amped up with even more dry hopping. Trillium might do the best job dry hopping of any brewery. This beer was easily the favorite. Super juicy fruit notes, some herbal quality to balance it out but overall a huge punch in the nose the second you crack the top.
  
  
• Mosaic Dry Hopped Fort Point Pale Ale: A riff on their Fort Point Pale Ale that uses Citra hops, this one packs a little more subtle punch of hop goodness, but still has a wonderful fruity nose and a little more bready dry finish on the end. This one actually gives a nice vegetal berry flavor at the end which really showcases all the nuance of mosaic. Crazy drinkable beer.
  
  
• Galaxy Dry-Hopped Fort Point Pale Ale: That beer before but with Galaxy, because why not. I could not get enough of this beer. Super fruity nose and just tastes like fuzzy peach all day. I cannot fully explain how they make something that is on one hand so overly hoppy while making it so balanced and flavorful at the same time. Any bitterness in these beers is very much intentional to keep you from getting overwhelmed by the waves of amazing hop flavor.
  
  
• Night & Day: A big badass cold brew coffee infused imperial stout. Perfect breakfast beer? This beer showcases one of the major oddities I see in some of these farmhouse breweries. These breweries that make awesome hoppy beers and saisons also manage to have dark beers and particularly imperial stouts down to a T. Whether it is Tired Hands or Tree House, these breweries know there way around a dark beer. This beer is intense inky black coffee, cocoa, dark fruit, vanilla, and molasses on the tongue and in the nose. Such an awesome roasty stout that it almost makes you forget that they have amazing IPAs. Almost.

Vibe: This location is literally the size of a postage stamp inside. You go in to get the beer and get out. That is it. The staff is wonderful, the neighborhood is amazing, and the inside looks pretty cool. But they do not have samples and they are there to efficiently distribute their beer to you. They seem to really have the production brewery thing down, but I have to relay the horror stories I have heard. I have heard of lines down blocks for their special releases. Now, every visit to this fine beer establishment that I have made has had me fortunate enough to be first in line. I also get there between 10-50 minutes before they open, so, I might be a little crazy. Shane has managed to walk in there with no wait at a random time so it seems possible to get lucky and just walk up and walk out with beer.

York’s Thoughts: When we started our weekend, Pete had put together an outline of most of the breweries and their exclusive beers we wanted to get to. Next to the Trillium entry was a very ambitious list of big bottle, big ABV, big flavor beers. Shane and I both expressed that while we absolutely wanted to try everything the had, perhaps 3 bottles each of half their stock was a bit much. WRONG. Pete held strong and we walked away with two cases or so. Glad we did because this stuff was so good that we used it as a treat throughout the entire weekend. A few were part of our blind tastings and all were top notch brews. Great example of living up to an extreme amount of hype. All cards on the table--I am a huge fan of drinking beer at breweries. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this might have been our best experience of all had we been able to sit at Trillium and drink beer. I understand that it isn’t their model, but it counts in my book.

Shane’s Thoughts: Pete is right--I have been lucky enough to walk in and out of Trillium at around 3:00 in the afternoon, so if you time your visit right, you can avoid long wait times. I’ll never begrudge a brewery long wait times during a special release, though. When have you ever gotten the “limited edition” of anything quickly and easily? No, Trillium makes the experience well worth it with some of the best beers I’ve ever hard. I’ve long been a Tree House devotee, but the blind taste test we conducted between Trillium and Tree House taught me that maybe--just maybe--I’ve become a little biased. No matter what, though, those two breweries sit at or near the top of the Massachusetts brewery game, and maybe even the United States brewery game.

Dogs: No.

Price ($ to $$$$$): $$$$

Food: No.

​-- Pete

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