By Katherine Bonamo

In 2011, Tree Home Brewing arrived on the craft beer scene with a bang. By 2013, its now-famous “Julius” IPA had cracked Beer Advocate’s prized High 250 Listing. By 2020, Tree Home was the biggest brewer in Massachusetts outdoors Boston—with out conventional distribution. To today, the one option to drink Tree Home beer is to gather or eat it on website, at one among 5 New England places—and beer lovers proceed to line up for the privilege.

This meteoric rise could look easy from the sidelines, however exhausting work and exhausting selections confronted the brewers at each stage. Brewing for enjoyable in your kitchen (as co-founder Nate Lanier did first) is one factor.  Brewing for the area people in your pal’s barn is one other, because the Tree Home group found after they first began promoting to the general public. And constructing your personal full-scale skilled brewing operation is a distinct stage of effort completely.

One a part of the answer for Tree Home was to streamline its bodily enlargement with COOL-FIT Pre-insulated Piping from GF Piping Methods. Light-weight plastic piping insulated on the manufacturing facility meant a quick, simple set up for the contractor. Design recommendation and coaching assist from GF meant that the brewers might think about what they do greatest—dreaming up the subsequent Tree Home cult favourite.

Constructing to Final

In its early years, Tree Home outgrew one base of operations after one other. Their first business website, in Brimfield, Massachusetts (co-founder Damien Goudreau’s barn), attracted crowds so giant they triggered pushback from the neighbors. Their second, in a member of the family’s storage in close by Monson, was too cramped to allow them to sustain with rising demand. By 2014, the 4 Tree Householders (Lanier, Goudreau, Dean Rohan, and Jonathan Weisbach) had taken the main determination to construct their very own 9,000-square-foot premises, simply down the highway. However all too quickly, the brewers wanted much more room.

By 2016, plans had been in place to construct Tree Home’s present headquarters, on a far bigger scale in each sense. Clocking in at 55,000 sq. ft, the brand new facility in Charlton, Mass., could be greater than six instances the scale of the previous. Most brewing capability would enhance much more dramatically, by an element of 18. Reflecting the financial heft of this rising concern, the $18.5M undertaking was supported partially by a $7.7M bond from MassDevelopment. 

Constructing once more in such a brief time period—with the purpose of making a everlasting base—gave Tree Home the chance to rethink each technical determination in its brewing operation. On this gentle, one necessary revision emerged: the selection of piping materials for his or her cooling loop. Tree Home had constructed its first cooling piping system from copper, historically thought to be a high-quality choice. Nevertheless, insulating the steel pipes as wanted for the glycol loop at Tree Home proved extra troublesome than anticipated. Condensation would construct up between the pipes and the insulation, undermining effectivity and creating undesirable dripping.

To realize higher outcomes, Tree Home selected GF’s COOL-FIT Pre-Insulated Piping System for the glycol cooling loops in its new flagship brewhouse. The lighter weight of plastic piping and the design of GF’s becoming a member of system made set up considerably quicker and less expensive. Putting in the insulation forward of time beneath manufacturing facility situations simplified the undertaking schedule, without having for an insulating crew to comply with the pipefitters. The manufacturing facility precision and trendy supplies additionally ensured glorious efficiency at Charlton with nearly no upkeep, even with the brewery’s chiller items positioned outside. When Tree Home wanted to develop the Charlton piping system in 2022, this observe document made staying with COOL-FIT a simple determination.

“To avoid wasting the labor time in insulating, to avoid wasting the cash in insulating, and have a product that’s plug and play—it was enormous for us,” famous Tree Home co-founder Dean Rohan—a former plumber by commerce.  “Additionally: it doesn’t rot, it doesn’t rust, and it doesn’t break.”

“Not One Leak Occurred”

Eric Candy, President of Northeast Course of Methods, Inc., dealt with the newest piping system enlargement at Charlton. Explaining that he steadily installs COOL-FIT for brewery functions, Candy famous the enchantment of its thermal efficiency for this trade. “Any lack of temperature from the chiller to the furthest fermenting vessel is a possible for degraded product,” he identified. “They couldn’t preserve the low temperature on a constant foundation with some other piping system.” 

In the meantime, Candy appreciated the system’s considerate design from his personal standpoint. “The preprogrammed weld parameters and the barcode scanner made the joint sealing quite simple and really dependable,” he defined. Proud to work along with his son Tyler on the intensive effort (as his household’s fourth technology within the pipefitting enterprise), Candy reported satisfaction with the outcomes: “We did most likely near 800 joints on this specific undertaking, proportion of them most likely 22 ft up within the air, and never one leak occurred. In order that speaks for itself.” 

GF had consulted with Tree Home on the design, format, and measurement of the enlargement all alongside the way in which, a partnership position that Dean Rohan appreciates. Alluding to frequent assist visits from GF technical personnel, Rohan famous that COOL-FIT “doesn’t simply have a pamphlet or an internet site that you just go to. It seems like now we have somebody on our facet on a regular basis.” From the set up standpoint, Eric Candy valued GF’s involvement as properly: “The assist that we received from GF Piping Methods was spot on.”

Extra Than Meets the Eye

Set excessive on a hilltop, Tree Home Charlton overlooks acres of forest in a peaceable nook of central Massachusetts. The fantastic thing about this location clearly helps make Tree Home runs a pleasure for its prospects. However as with many types of artwork, a strong technical basis lies behind what meets the attention—and the palate. Inventive inspiration was wanted to provide Tree Home’s award-winning beers—however so was engineering excellence within the brewhouse, backed by organizational dedication. If “craft” is the place artwork and science meet, then nothing makes extra sense than this craft brewer’s swift success. And for simply the identical cause, nothing is extra doubtless than continued progress to come back. 

Katherine Bonamo writes on matters in structure, engineering, and development for publications all through the USA.