I think it is crucial for every brewery to have a “calling card” style, a beer style or set of styles that they consistently excel at. If your brewery make awesome pale lagers, saisons, or sours than fans of that style will become regular customers, and will eventually try the other beers you create. While the vast majority of local breweries make NEIPAs, and a shockingly large number make more versions of this style than all other beers combined, there are few that make them consistently great. With the need to constantly rotate in “new” IPAs even some quality breweries have duds in the mix or struggle to maintain quality batch-to-batch. While Tree House brews beer in a variety of different styles, NEIPAs are their calling card, people aren’t waiting in line just to buy their brown ale or ESB. I have been especially impressed with Tree House’s double IPAs, they make a massive number of different DIPAs and many are exceptionally well done, hitting the right balance between huge hop flavor and easy drinkability for a big beer. I am clearly not the only one who enjoys what Tree House is putting out, in addition to their massive expansions at their Charlton brewery they are opening two new locations in Deerfield and Sandwich. One Tree House DIPA I grabbed on a recent stop at the brewery was Doubleganger, a massively hopped version of Doppleganger (which is the imperial version of Alter Ego, one of their popular “single” IPAs). Tree House Doubleganger is available on a rotating basis on draft and in 16 oz cans.
Tree House Doubleganager pours murky deep orange with a massive white head. The aroma features a big punch of tropical fruit. These hops also dominate the flavor, notes of mango, grapefruit, honey dew and passion fruit along with a very soft/mild bitterness. A malt backbone adds some balance along with hints of bread dough and crackers. Doubleganger is full bodied but ridiculously smooth for a DIPA with 8.2% ABV. The finish is crisp and leaves a coating of hop flavor on the tongue. This is a phenomenal DIPA, one of the best I’ve had from Tree House (or anywhere for that matter). I look forward to getting more soon at any of their locations! Hoppy Boston score: 5.0/5.
Previous Tree House Reviews:
Tree House Eureka: Mosaic, Brewery Profile: Tree House Brewing Co., Tree House Double Shot Vanilla Bean, Tree House Green, Tree House In Perpetuity and I Have Promises To Keep, Tree House Tornado, Tree House Julius, Tree House Alter Ego, Tree House Haze
Hoppy Boston 
