Coronavirus Prompts Big Changes At Crowded Tree House Brewery

CHARLTON, MA — A typical Saturday afternoon at Tree House Brewing in Charlton can sometimes feel like a day at Fenway Park.

The brewery's twin parking lots are usually packed, and lines to buy drafts or racks of canned beer extend out the door. Hundreds of beer drinkers, kids, and dogs line the long picnic tables inside.

But with the coronavirus outbreak sweeping across New England, the brewery is making major changes aimed at cutting down the crowds. In a statement posted on its website this week, the Tree House founders said they would stop serving draft beer "indefinitely" among other strictures, like asking visitors to bring their own pens, and no longer accepting cash.

"The Tree House community is immense," co-founder Nathan Lanier wrote in the long, serious letter. "It is our duty to ensure that this community is safe, and can feel safe at all times when they visit the brewery."

The brewery, which employs about 125 people, is also sending staff members at high risk of contracting COVID-19 home on paid sick leave.

Tree House was founded in 2011 Brimfield, but moved into a state-of-the-art brewery on a hilltop in Charlton off Route 20 in 2017. The 53,000 square-foot facility is capable of producing 60,000 barrels of beer per year. The brewery's Julius IPA has been ranked one of the best in the U.S., and Tree House was ranked No. 4 in the world by Rate Beer last month (one slot behind Canton-based Trillium).

Lanier said that if the new measures — which include building a new structure to sell cans of beer — don't work, the brewer is "prepared to close" to stop a virus that has already knocked out the Boston Marathon, Harvard University, and opening day at Fenway Park.