Month: June 2010

In This Issue

• From the Director’s Chair: And the Winner is….
• 4th Anniversary Wrap-up
• Upcoming Events: Christmas in July Celebration & Fundraiser
• New Beer Releases
• Were Did You Find Our Beer?

From the Director’s Chair
And the Winner is…

This past Wednesday, I attended the San Marcos Economic Development Committee meeting at City Hall here in San Marcos. During this luncheon, there was an award ceremony and, wouldn’t you know it, we won an EDE.

Since many of you readers out there may not know what an EDE is, I thought I would share with you that it stands for Economic Development Excellence award. All told, there were 8 EDE’s given out and Port Brewing earned the award for Product Excellence in Manufacturing. These awards are given to San Marcos based companies who display excellence in their business practices and promote the city at the same time.

Standing on stage (in front of all sorts of San Marcos City Council Members and Planners), it was an honor to receive this business based award.

You see, since we opened our doors some 4 years ago, Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey has won numerous awards at local, regional and even international beer competitions. All of these awards focus on specific beers competing against other beers. And we love to see our beers do very well. Yet being a very young company means we don’t typically get nominated nor win awards for our civic contributions. Still, the great people on the EDC committee thought we were worth recognizing.

I guess having a World Class brewery in San Marcos does makes great sense and I for one am glad we earned this recognition. Hats off to all of our employees who made this possible.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find some glass cleaner. Someone got their fingerprints on our new shiny trophy…

4th Anniversary Celebration Wrap-up

Our 4th anniversary celebration last month was our largest yet and was doubly exciting, as it almost didn’t happen.

This year we divided the party into two sessions and converted our barrelhouse loading area into an outdoor dining area. Combined with our new, larger tasting room we were able to comfortably accommodate all our guests.

Beyond the great music and the great beer (naturally), the other highlights of the day were the tours of the new barrelhouse led by Tomme himself. (1,000 oak barrels full of beer stacked, racked and awaiting the angels’ blessing is something to behold.)

The barrelhouse only has room for 20 or so people at a time, so the plan was for Tomme to guide a tour every 30 minutes or so. But once folks got inside, people naturally began asking questions, taking photos, etc., and each tour ended up being closer to an hour long. As a result, we only did half the number of tours planned, but we’re pretty sure those lucky enough to go enjoyed the time twice as much.

We’ve posted a photo album from the Anniversary party on the website.

» Click here to see the album

Upcoming events
Christmas in July Celebration & Fundraiser

This July 24th, celebrate the release of the 2010 Bourbon-barrel-aged Santa’s Little Helper and help us collect toys for the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots Foundation. There will be food, music, photos with Santa, and, of course, great Lost Abbey / Port Brewing beers on hand.

There’s no admission, all we ask is that you bring a new, unwrapped toy worth $15 or more for Toys for Tots. Last year we collected nearly $10,000 in toys and cash donations for the Foundation, and this year we’re hoping to beat that and help a lot of kids who otherwise might not get a Christmas.

» Click here for more details

New Beer Releases

Here’s the new and upcoming beer releases for June/July 2010

• June 12:
  Older Viscosity — Bourbon Barrel-aged Old Viscosity
• June 19:
  Road to Helles — German Pale Lager
• June 26:
  Witch’s Wit — Belgian Wit
• July 24:
  Cuvee de Tomme 2010 (Estimated release date)

&raquo Click here for the full beer release calendar

Where Did You Find Our Beer?

With our increased capacity and expanding distribution, our beers are showing up in places more than ever. You can help your fellow Lost Abbey / Port Brewing beer lovers by adding the location where you found our beers to the map on our website.

Restaurant, pub, retailer — it doesn’t matter. We want to know!

» Click to tell us where you found our beer