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10 Worcester Business Journal | December 11, 2017 | wbjournal.com Tree House's long lines and cult following just sort of happened, says its co-founder The exclusive beer P H O T O / E D D C O T E F OC U S F O O D & D R I N K Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. Decorah, Iowa 658 Good Morning Tree House Brewing Co. Charlton, Mass. 1,030 Heady Topper The Alchemist Brewery and Visitors Center Stowe, Vt. 13,703 Hunhahpu's Imperial Stout - Double Barrel Aged Cigar City Brewing Tampa, Fla. 1,514 Barrel-Aged Abraxas Perennial Artisan Ales Saint Louis, Mo. 1,366 Marshmallow Handjee 3 Floyds Brewing Co Munster, Ind. 1,530 King Julius Tree House Brewing Co. Charlton, Mass. 783 Pliny The Younger Russian River Brewing Co. Santa Rosa, Calif. 3,103 Mornin' Delight Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. Decorah, Iowa 1,275 Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout Goose Island Beer Co. Chicago, Ill. 7,135 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Top beers According to the users of Boston-based rating site BeerAdvocate, which ranks beers from all over the world, Tree House has two of the top 10 tasting beers in the world. Source: BeerAdvocate Rank Beer Brewery Location Number of ratings BY ZACHARY COMEAU Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer D espite high acclaim from customers and rating sites, Tree House Brewing Co. beer is hard to get your hands on. The brewery doesn't distribute, so beer lov- ers are forced to make the drive to the 52,000-square-foot Charlton brewery. That exclusivity, intentional or not, has created somewhat of a cult fanbase and turned the beer into a novelty among beer drinkers. Now, it's not uncommon to see license plates from New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and other faraway places pulling up to the busy brewery. "That kind of happened organical- ly," said Dean Rohan, co-founder of the brewery. "We're not doing any- thing special." The business model is simple. Brew beer, can it, and only sell it out of Charlton. First comes the flavor The beer, of course, is tasty, according to beer rating websites and apps where Tree House fans give their favorite beers, like Julius and Haze, near perfect marks. Good Morning, Tree House's imperial stout, is ranked No. 2 on beeradvocate. com with a 4.79 out of 5 from more than 1,000 raters. On beer-rating app UnTappd, nearly 100,000 beer drinkers gave nine different Tree House beers have a rating of at least 4.57 out of 5. On a chilly Thursday afternoon earli- Tree House will use its Twitter account to let potential customers know how long the line to buy beer is at any given time. Those lines are typically 100 or more people deep.