Posted on

Memorial Day Weekend Updates

Memorial Day Weekend

With a little under 24 hours before the Moment of Truth, we though it’d be a good time to update everyone on all the other changes going into place for the summer starting today (May 27, 2011). Here you go:

Extended Summer Hours

Starting Memorial Day weekend and running through Labor Day weekend, we’re extending our tasting room hours so that more people have a chance to drop by. Our extended weekend hours for summer are as follows:

  • Friday: 3pm to 9pm
  • Saturday: 12pm to 7pm
  • Sunday: 12pm to 6pm

The tasting room will still be closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and open from 1pm to 5pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays for bottle sales & growler fills only. (Don’t complain. The brewhouse crew needs the room so they can make all that liquid magic we love so much.)

Open Memorial Day

In addition to the longer hours starting this weekend, the Tasting Room will also be open on Memorial Day — Monday, May 30 — from 12pm to 4pm so you can roll in for a few tasters and pick up some bottles and/or a growler fill for your holiday barbeque.

Oh — and speaking of Memorial Day weekend, we’d be remiss not to mention that this Sunday, May 29th, is Terri the tasting room manager’s birthday. Make sure to tell her happy birthday if you stop by!

Barrel Room tasting bar now open

If you haven’t dropped by in the past couple of weeks then you probably don’t know that we recently opened a new tasting bar in our Barrel Room. Tucked in among the barrels awaiting the Angel’s to give their blessing, there’s 20 taps (just like the main bar) loaded with Port Brewing & Lost Abbey goodness. If the main bar looks a little crowded or you’d just like to enjoy a taster or two in a really cool atmosphere, make sure to check it out!

Special Beers on Tap

Back in Mak Porter — This weekend we’ll also have a couple of special beers on tap perfect to kick off summer. The first is “Back in Mak”, a robust porter that you may already know as Makanudo or La Cruda Porter. It’s a beer that dates back to Tomme’s first gig as a professional brewer way back in 1996 (and the first beer for which he earned a GABF gold medal). Tomme, his old boss Troy Hojel and Skip Virgilio (a founder of Alesmith) all met to brew the beer together for the first time in 15 years. Most of the beer is being bottled as La Cruda Porter, which will go to attendees of the NHC next month (read: no distribution). But we’ve got a few kegs we decided to put on tap as “Back in Mak” so you’ll have a chance to taste it even if you’re not attending the conference.

Dawn Patrol — Dawn Patrol Dark is an English Mild Ale that we actually brew as the base beer for Red Poppy. We don’t distribute this beer, but it’s a wonderful, low ABV beer perfect for an afternoon session, so we decided to put on one of the remaining kegs (the rest has already gone into the barrels), giving you an opportunity to taste Red Poppy before it’s, well, Red Poppy. (Red Poppy is also on tap, so try them side-by-side and check out how the beer is transformed in the barrels.)

If you’re into the barrel-aged specialty stuff, we’ll also have Brandy Angel’s Share, Older Viscosity, Ad Lib and Red Poppy on tap for as long as it lasts!

BYO Growlers

Unfortunately, we had a mix up with the glass company and we are completely out of growlers until June 6th. If you’re looking for a growler fill, please make sure to bring your own growler. (And remember we can only fill growlers labeled Lost Abbey or Port Brewing. We’re not allowed to fill any other brewery’s growler by law, so double-check your bottle and make sure it has our name on it before coming in.)

Veritas 009 Release

Finally, this weekend is the release of our much-anticipated Veritas 009. There is only 100 cases total of this and we’re limiting it to 4 bottles per person. We will be opening at 10am for Veritas bottle sales (the full tasting room will still open at noon) and we expect this one to sell out in a couple of hours, so if you’d like to pick up bottles, we recommend that you arrive sooner rather than later. All the details on Veritas 009 can be found here: Veritas 009 Release Announcement.

Posted on

Lost Abbey to Release Veritas 009

The Lost Abbey’s latest barrel-aged rarity more than three years in the making

Veritas 009 - May 28, 2011

The Lost Abbey will release the next in its coveted Veritas small-batch barrel-aged beers on Saturday, May 28, 2011. The most complex and time-consuming beer released by the brewery to date, Veritas 009 took more than three years and periods in bourbon and wine barrels to create. With only 100 cases available, Veritas 009 will not reach general distribution and will be available for purchase directly from the brewery only. The 750ml cork-stoppered bottles will be $35 each and strictly limited to four bottles per person.

Veritas 009 is a substantial departure from earlier members of The Lost Abbey’s small batch experimental program, which were generally sour beers aged in French oak barrels for 12 to 15 months. Begun in late 2007 as dark base beer, it was sent to freshly emptied bourbon barrels from Kentucky’s Heaven Hill Distilleries. The beer aged for 15 months before it was moved into French oak barrels previously used for wine (primarily Syrah). Sour cherries were added and the beer was left to rest for another year and three months. Finally, in mid-2010, it was pulled from the barrels, blended, bottled and sent off to condition for an additional 11 months.

“It’s one of the most complex beers we’ve ever created,” Arthur said. “Veritas 009 has strong notes of cherry, red wine, cedar and dark cocoa accentuated by a pervasive acidity that makes for an incredibly deep finish. It’s an amazing beer and easily one of the most cellarable produced at The Lost Abbey. I have no doubt that it will drawn fans from both the craft beer and wine worlds.”

Interestingly, Veritas 009 came close to never being made available to the public. Begun as a private project of Arthur’s, the existence of the beer and the details behind it were kept secret until last year. Even after news of the beer leaked to the public Arthur declined to discuss it beyond acknowledging that he did indeed have a barrel-aging project referred to only as “KT”, a reference to the secretive order of the Knights Templar. It wasn’t until a sampling session that Arthur decided to move the beer into Lost Abbey’s public small batch program and release it as Veritas 009.

“There is so little and it took so long to perfect we actually considered issuing it as a private release, or not at all,” Arthur said. “But after sampling last week, we decided that it was just too good to keep hidden and the public should have access to it.”

A total of 117 cases (12 bottles each) of Veritas 009 were produced. 100 cases will be made available to the public on release day. More details are available below.

Veritas 009 Release Details

  • When: Saturday, May 28, 2011. 10am – 6pm
  • Where: Port Brewing / The Lost Abbey – 155 Mata Way, Suite 104, San Marcos, CA 92069 (click for directions)
  • Total release: 100 cases (1200 bottles)
  • Format: 750ml cork stoppered bottles
  • Price: $35 per bottle
  • Limits: Four (4) bottles per person maximum
Posted on

Judgment Day Celebration

It’s the End of the World as we know it.

Or maybe it isn’t. Based on your personal beliefs, May 21, 2011 could be a) your ticket to heaven, b) the beginning of the end, or c) just the third Saturday in May.

Judgment Day is Upon Us
Judgment Day is Upon Us

Regardless of what happens, however, we’re hard-pressed to come up with a better way to enjoy the day than with our gold medal winning Judgment Day Belgian quad-style ale.

So all day May 21 we’ll be celebrating Judgment Day with tasting room specials, drawings and events. Here’s just a few of the things on tap for the End of Days:

  • Judgment Day Specials: Pints – $4, Growler Fills – $12, Bottles (375ml and 75ml) – 20% off
  • Prize Drawings: We’ll be holding drawings throughout the day for The Lost Abbey clothing, headwear and our cool new Lost Abbey flags
  • Costume competition: Come dressed ready for the Apocalypse (horseman, avenging angel, demon, sinner, saint — it’s up to you) and be eligible to win stuff suitable for sinners and saints alike!
  • Judgment Day Art: We’ll have the original Four Horsemen painting that is our Judgment Day label on display. Come check it out in all it’s doomsday glory.

The fun starts at 12pm and carries on until 6pm (by then we’ll probably know if the world is coming to an end or not). Admission is free and open to both Sinners and Saints alike. See you there!

 

Songs playing at the brewery during the event:

Highway to Hell – ACDC

Still Alive – Portal

I Just Died in Your Arms – Cutting Crew

Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo

Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey

Mad World – Tears for Fears

Save Tonight – Eagle Eye Cherry

Judgment Day – Van Halen

Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind

The Final Countdown – Europe

Waiting on the World to Change – John Mayer

We Will Become Silhouettes – Postal Service

Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees

It’s the End of the World as We Know It – REM

The Call of the Ktulu – Metallica

The Four Horsemen – Metallica

Apocalypse Please – Muse

Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears

Four Winds – Bright Eyes

Fire and Rain – James Taylor

When the World Ends – Dave Matthews Band

Should I Stay of Should I Go – The Clash

God’s Gonna Cut You Down – Johnny Cash

Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash

Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult

End of the Road – Boyz II Men

Time is Running Out – Muse

I Think We’re Alone Now – Tiffany

Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden

How Am I Supposed to Live Without You – Michael Bolton

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye – Steam

Dead – They Might be Giants

Last Dance – Donna Summer

Mona Lisa – Nat King Cole

The Winning Side – Oingo Boingo

Robots – Flight of the Conchords

I Don’t Want to Wait – Paula Cole

Nowhere to Run – Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Thoughts of Dying Atheist – Muse

O Death – O Brother Where Art Thou

Let the River Run – Carly Simon

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) – Green Day

Bye Bye Bye – N’Sync

Dancing in Heaven – Robert Plant

I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie

Heaven is a Place on Earth – Belinda Carlisle

I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor

Till the World Ends – Brittany Spears

Ride of the Valkyries – Wagner

Where Do Bad Folks Go – Nirvana

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow – Carole King

Posted on

Anniversary Schedule of Events

Attending our Sold Out 5th Anniversary Celebration? Not attending but interested in lurking outside and seeing what’s going on? Well, we’ve ordered up some great weather (partly sunny, mid-60’s) and put together an amazing list of everything in store for the day:

All Day Events

official hashtag

#port5th

(tweet it!)

Live Webcast
We’ll be broadcasting live all day! Andy Killion (aka @Metromixsd !) will be covering the entire event live with interviews, chats and fun. If you’re attending, you’re invited to step into the broadcast booth and say hello to everyone. If you’re watching from your computer, tablet or phone, you’re invited to chat with Andy and his guests via our Ustream broadcast channel!

Live broadcast begins at 11am PDT.

Click here to download the phone app and watch the broadcast.

Barrel House Tours
Explore the mysteries of the Lost Abbey barrel archives with Barrel Master & Lead Brewer, Ryan Fields. Ryan will be leading two tours per session. Each tour takes approximately 30 minutes and is limited to 35 people. (Register early to ensure your slot. This fills up quickly!)

Session One Tours: 12pm | 2pm – Session Two Tours: 5pm | 7pm

You must sign up to go on the tour! Registration will be at the entrance to the barrel house.

Live Music
This year we’re pleased to host not one, but two live bands in the brewhouse for your listening pleasure. Session One will be host to the vintage-tinged garage, folk, rock and roll sounds of Kiera and the Lesbians. Session Two will be our favorite lounge lizards, The Professors, and their special brand of surf-styled rock and roll. Music starts at noon.

Food, food, food
Chefs Jason Danderand and Steve Owen will be steaming, smoking, BBQing and frying their way through a whole raft of San Diego-style street foods. Street food not your thing? The magic pizza trailer will also be on hand to cooking up pies fresh and hot! Water and soft drinks will also available courtesy of Dr Pepper.

Food and drinks will be in the outdoor pavilion next to the barrel house.

What’s On Tap

What’s a brewery birthday party without plenty of beer? The brewers have dug deep into the archives to fully stock both bars (the main bar as well as our new barrel room bar) with a huge array of Port Brewing & Lost Abbey beers. All of the following will be on tap at the main bar as well as in the barrel room:

The regulars (1 taster ticket)

    Port Brewing 

  • Anniversary – Hoppy, Strong Pale Ale
  • Hot Rocks – Stein Lager
  • Mongo – Double IPA
  • Old Viscosity – Dark Strong Ale
  • Panzer Pils – Imperial Pilsner
  • Santa’s Little Helper – Imperial Stout
  • Shark Attack – Double Red Ale
  • Wipeout – West Coast IPA
    The Lost Abbey 

  • Avant Garde – Biere de Garde
  • Devotion – Belgian Blond
  • Judgment Day – Belgian Quad with Raisins
  • Red Barn – Saison
  • Saison Blanc – Light Saison with Green Raisins & Pepper
  • Serpent’s Stout – Belgian Sweet Stout
  • Ten Commandments – Belgian Strong Ale

The Specialties (3 taster tickets)

  • Ad Lib (2011) – Special Limited Release Blend made with Rye Barrel Serpent’s Stout, Bourbon Midnight Expression and Bourbon Judgment Day. Only 50 five gallon kegs of this are going into distribution, so this may be your one and only chance to try a legendary Lost Abbey one-off blends!
  • Angel’s Share – Brandy Barrel (2011) – Barleywine aged in Brandy Barrels
  • Framboise de Amorosa (2011) – Raspberry Sour Aged in Wine Barrels
  • Red Poppy (2011) – Flanders-style Red with Sour Cherries aged in Wine Barrels
  • Older Viscosity (2011) – Dark Strong Ale Aged in Bourbon Barrels

…Expect other “secret” specialties throughout the day as well! (Watch for the DOBO lurking about.)

Remember, eight taster tickets come with your admission, but additional tickets will also be available for $1 each.

Whew…

See you there! (And if not, we’ll see you on the web.)

Posted on

Video: Grain Silo Becomes a Giant Barrel

If you’ve ever been to the brewery, you know that it’s a humble building in the middle of a nondescript industrial park where all the buildings look the same. We used to tell people “look for the grain silo out front”, but even that three story tank was hard to find because it was the same color as the building and tucked behind a tree.

So in April of 2011 we commissioned artist Sean Dominguez (the same artist who does all of the paintings that become the Lost Abbey labels) to transform our silo from a drab off-white cylinder into a 30-foot tall “wooden barrel” that would be nearly impossible to miss. Over the next several weeks, armed with a fistful of paintbrushes, a few cans of paint and an industrial lift, Sean did just that.

In this, the second entry in our new video gallery, Lost Abbey’s multimedia man, Ryan Tillotson, captures Sean at work and collapsing 2 weeks into an interesting 3 minute time-lapse video. Enjoy!

Posted on

Libri Divini – May 2011

The Official Newsletter of Port Brewing & The Lost Abbey
Volume 3, Issue 2

In This Issue:

Where’s Tomme? | New Faces: Meet Gwen Conley | 5th Anniversary Party | New Beer Releases | Upcoming Events | The Cat is Back!

Let’s Play Where’s Tomme!

Greeting members of the faithful!

We are skipping the usual message from the DOBO this month as Tomme, world traveler that he is, is out and about being Tomme Arthur. Having just returned from Europe (Scotland, Belgium and Denmark, specifically), this week he’s up in Chico, CA at Sierra Nevada doing a collaboration brew with a few of the other members of the “Brett Pack” (Adam from Avery Brewing, Sam from Dogfish Head, and Rob from Allagash).

Next week he’ll be back home for our 5th Anniversary celebration (more on that below), and then he’ll be heading out to do a coast-to-coast beer week tour. If you’d like to say hi to Tomme, you’ll be able to find him at the following:

  • May 19 to 26 – Seattle Beer Week
  • June 3 to 4 – Savor, Washington DC
  • June 5 to 8 – Philly Beer Week

We don’t have a full list of his appearance schedule just yet, so stay tuned via our Twitter and Facebook feeds. Or better yet, subscribe to our calendar and you’ll get all the updates delivered right to your computer / phone / tablet / etc.

New Faces: Meet Gwen Conley

Gwen Conley

One of the more exciting things to happen here at The Abbey is the arrival of our new Quality Assurance Director, Gwen Conley. For those not familiar with her name, Gwen comes to us from the famous Flying Dog Brewery in Maryland where she headed their QA department for years.

Gwen actually got into the beer business back in the 90’s through what she calls “dumb luck” — more or less wandering into it when she went to work as a microbiologist for Coors in Golden, Colorado. After leaving Coors she went to work for the Ball Corporation (the container people) where she went through their sensory training program and became an expert on how colors, aromas, and flavors work together to create full-fledged sensory experiences. That ended up getting her part time work doing food and drink pairings and eventually earned her the moniker “Sensory Goddess.”

She eventually parlayed her unique background into her gig at Flying Dog where she not only managed their QA efforts, but also conducted educational programs in beer and food pairings. As for her reasons for jumping to the left coast and joining us here at Port / Lost Abbey, Gwen said “It was the opportunity to do the sort of experimentation that goes on here. Working with so many barrels and different beers was hard to pass up.” (She also admitted that living in San Diego isn’t so bad either.)

As QA director Gwen has jumped in and taken over oversight of our brewing and production processes, finally putting all that really cool equipment in our shiny new lab to work. She’s also held a number of sensory sessions for the staff, and we’re trying to convince her to do a few classes for the general public as well (keep your fingers crossed).

Asked what she’d be doing if she wasn’t helping make great beer, Gwen revealed an interesting aspiration. “I think I’d run a snorkel bar somewhere in the Caribbean or Central America,” shed said. Guests would snorkel half the day, then at 3pm the snorkeling stops and the drinking starts.”

A snorkel bar? Sounds like a pretty good plan to us.

Want to hear more from Gwen? Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SensoryGoddess

5th Anniversary Party

Our fifth birthday party is Saturday, May 14, 2011 — just a little more than a week and a half away — and we’re inviting all our friends, fans and members of the faithful to drop by and say hello!

As with last year, so everyone has plenty of room and can enjoy the food, music and (of course) beer, we’re dividing the party into two sessions — an early one from 11am to 3pm and a later one from 4pm to 8pm.

Items on tap for our daylong festivities include specialty kegs from the barrel archives, bottled beer releases, special barrelhouse tours, amazing street food from our in-house chefs, and live music from our two special guests — Kiera and the Lesbians and The Professors.

The $15 ticket includes a commemorative glass, 8 beer tasting tickets, food and live music. Tickets are very limited, however, so if you’d like to attend, you should buy them sooner rather than later.

For full details and to buy tickets, click here.

New Beer Releases

Speaking of our Anniversary Party, we also have two beer releases from the Port Brewing side of the house coinciding with the party. On May 14 we will issue the following beers:

Anniversary Ale – Our annual hoppy strong pale ale.
Older Viscosity – Old Viscosity aged in Bourbon oak barrels for a year.

No need to worry if you can’t attend the anniversary party. Both of these beers will reach our full distribution network. Look for them on shelves and your favorite pubs and eateries in mid-to-late May.

Upcoming Events

Mark your calendars (or subscribe to ours) — the following events are coming up!

May 16 to 22 – American Craft Beer Week
The annual nationwide ode to American craft brews. We’ll be kicking it off a couple of days early with our anniversary party, but you can expect some fun in the tasting room May 20 – 22 as well.

June 16 to 18 – National Homebrewer’s Conference
The NHC is here in San Diego this year and we’ll be rolling out the red carpet all week long for our homebrewer friends. Tomme & Co. have already brewed a special beer for the conference, and we’ll be extending tasting room hours to accommodate all the folks who will be in town earlier in the week. Details will be posted on our calendar and website as we get closer to the dates.

July 16 – Christmas in July
Our annual celebration and fundraiser for Toys for Tots will be a little earlier than last year (so people can go to ComicCon and our party). As with previous years we’ll be releasing Santa’s Little Helper aged in Bourbon oak barrels, Santa will be on hand for photos, and there will be live music and food. Oh, and it’s all FREE (except for the beer) if you just bring a new, unwrapped toy worth $15 or more! Last year we raised close to $10,000 in cash and toys for the Marine Corp’s Toys for Tots foundation and this year we’d like to do even better, so make plans to attend.

Amarillo is Back!

Amarillo holding court in the tasting room

For those of you who follow our Twitter and/or Facebook feeds, you’re probably aware that one of our brewcats, Amarillo, disappeared a couple of weeks back, much to our dismay (the tasting room just isn’t the same without him holding court on the bar or the barrel tables).

We are please to report that last Saturday night he suddenly re-appeared. Skinny, disheveled and exhausted, he ate two cans of cat food and a whole bowl of dry food in a matter of minutes, and spent the entire next day “talking” to anyone and everyone who came into the tasting room (usually his sister, Cascade is the talkative one).

We’re not entirely certain what happened (nobody here speaks cat), but we’re pretty sure he had a quite an adventure. All we can say is everyone — Amarillo included — is happy that he’s back.

Thanks to all those who put out the call that he was missing (he even made it on a local TV news broadcast), sent kind words, and brought him treats and gifts since his return. You guys are the best!