Tree House Brewing's first NYS location is a stunner

Massachusetts brewery famed for its hazy IPAs recently opened sterling new spot in Saratoga Springs

Over the last decade, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in New York’s Capital District as my wife has family throughout the area. The Albany region is really teeming with history and is way cooler than I once realized.

With increased visits to Cassie’s family in and around Schenectady (and now southern Saratoga County), I immediately realized how spoiled craft beer nerds were in the region. The distributed beer offerings in the Albany area are just nutty. It wasn’t abnormal to go into a random dive bar and see Hill Farmstead beers on draft (and you really increased the chances of this if you visited Delaware Supply in Albany, Mohawk Taproom in Scotia, and The Ruck in Troy, three of the best beer bars in the state and arguably three of my seven favorite places ever — I smell a future newsletter).

As long as I’ve been tracking and writing about beer, Albany-area distro has received a whole slew of cool stuff. (If I had to guess, I’d say being at the crossroads of New England, specifically Vermont, and New York City has put Albany at the forefront of selection and choice. Plus, having a craft-only distributor in Remarkable Liquids, based in Guilderland, has certainly helped.)

So yes, the distro alone made Albany into a beer destination. It has long been home to some incredible beer bars (and we’re not even getting into the pioneering Mahar’s in Albany and the role that place had in expanding palates and introducing folks to classics through its questionable service). And then the region started adding buzz-worthy breweries that really drew attention to the scene.

It already included underrated spots like Wolf Hollow (pound-for-pound one of my favorite breweries in the state), Druthers, Brown’s, Common Roots, Whitman, Rare Form (which temporarily closed in April and remains closed at this moment), and some others.

Excuse me for being long-winded. But I’m trying to demonstrate how cool and under-appreciated the entire Albany beer scene is. After I explored the region for a bit, I realized I was mistaken and started to understand that while it didn't generate a ton of buzz, the whole scene was pretty strong and varied and interesting.

This is an extremely long-winded way to show how cool the Albany beer scene is. It’s cooler than you expected. It’s better than you expected.

And now Albany is firmly on the national map, thanks to the emergence of a hyped hazy brewery and the opening of a satellite taproom/location for one of the most lauded breweries in modern craft beer.

Colonie-based Fidens Brewing, which opened its Albany taproom in the past few years, garnered attention for its hazy IPAs, DIY aesthetic, and growing list of collaborators. (A note: I was lucky enough to write an in-depth Fidens profile in the waning days of Good Beer Hunting, a national publication I very much miss.) Fidens plans to open a second taproom in Malta, Saratoga County, which would put it roughly 10 minutes from the region’s newest entry: Tree House Brewing. (Which is the whole point of this newsletter and the winding way that I finally got there. I promise I planned for this to be a simple 200 word intro and then 600 or 700 words on the sparkling new Tree House facility, but I just kept thinking about all the cool beer stuff in and around Albany and I didn’t even hit on the region’s best brewery — Wayward Lane in Schoharie.)

If you’ve followed craft beer for any part of the past decade, you already know all about Tree House. But if you haven’t, I can sum up the Tree House experience pretty simply — it’s about scale, it’s about haze, and it’s about ambiance. Tree House opened in 2011, moved to its mythic Monson, Massachusetts, home shortly thereafter, and then became part of the national craft beer conversation with the opening of its palatial and massive Charlton, Massachusetts, flagship home in 2016. And it was able to largely accomplish all of this because of its mastery of New England (or hazy) India pale ales, specifically beers like Julius, Green, Sap, and Haze. Hazy IPAs (and really stouts like Good Morning) led to beer nerds queuing up for hours to fill growlers in those early days. Charlton became a hazy beer factory.

That led to more and more expansion but it was all concentrated in New England (with numerous spots in Massachusetts and a farm in Connecticut). And expansion bred experimentation and portfolio growth. Now Tree House produces a gigantic range of beverages from non-alcoholic seltzers, to spirits, to coffee, to beers that run the stylistic gamut.

Photo: Me and my father-in-law Dave Izzo. (Still chuckle every time I see the DOGE hoodie).

And here’s the meat of the newsletter (thanks for sticking with me) — Tree House made a grand announcement about its New York expansion plans in October 2023. It purchased an 11-acre property along US Route 9, right in the shadow of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and right down the street from the historic Saratoga Race Course.

They sped through construction and opened for to-go sales in December 2024 (which we happily took advantage of during a Christmas-time visit to see Cassie’s family). And the taproom and expansive outdoor space opened earlier this spring. It’s one of those spots that has to be visited and experienced in person to take it all in and appreciate it for what it is. It’s huge. It’s gorgeous.

There is so much space to sit down and enjoy a beer. The interior tasting room feels like you’re in the middle of the fanciest Adirondack lodge. With interior trees and so much exposed wood, it’s easy to forget that you’re inside a palatial (second time I’ve used that word in this newsletter, setting a new Cleveland Prost record) brewery space. (No beer is made on-site in Saratoga. It all comes from Tree House’s other locations.)

Once you enter, you can immediately step in line to order a beer from the hulking 40-foot-long bar with 40 draft lines, step to the side to grab a slice of pizza from the in-house pizza cafe, shop around the retail space, or just take a step back and try to take it all in. The draft offerings, like the to-go options, are seemingly never-ending. While there, I enjoyed both a hazy DIPA and a smoked lager. And the pizza was also exquisite. I got to experience this spot for the first time with my eternally lovely father-in-law Dave and am already looking forward to our next visit. (I’ve never wanted to visit Cassie’s family more and more frequently, lol.)

While in line at the new spot, we met a couple from Connecticut who was visiting the Saratoga spot for the first time and proudly proclaimed that they had now visited each of the brewery’s locations, including the newer golf course spot (that’s not a misprint) and the Cape Cod location. So Tree House itself has become its own destination with devoted followers wanting to visit each and every spot.

Tree House is something that every beer nerd should experience. And it really has the potential to serve as a regional draw for the entire Albany region. Once people do visit, I hope they stay for a bit and explore the rest of what that area offers, because it really is an under-appreciated beer scene there. It’s one that I’ve devoted years to exploring and I hope others enjoy it as much as I do.

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for over two years now. In that time, I’ve published nearly 250 newsletters, highlighted some of my favorite people in the industry, curated two beers festivals (that featured 150 participants and 4,600 attendees), and continued to break all the biggest news in the region (closures, consolidations, openings, etc.).

The Cleveland Prost remains the preeminent source for regional beer news. If you own a brewery, bar, or beer-adjacent business, this is the best place to reach the nerds you wanna be in front of. So I remain open to sponsorships, advertisements, and sponsored content. Feel free to reach out to me at clevelandprost@gmail.com for more. And more than anything, thanks for all the support. None of this would be possible without the devoted (and thirsty) audience.