november – The Lost Abbey

The Official Newsletter of Port Brewing & The Lost Abbey
Volume 3, Issue 6

In this issue:

Thanksgiving Weekend Hours | Cuvee de Tomme 2011 Release | New Faces: Kevin Hopkins | First Ever: Commercial Conclave | New & Upcoming Beer Releases

Thanksgiving Weekend Hours

The Thanksgiving Holiday is upon us and as always our tasting room will be open special hours for your enjoyment over the long weekend.

Nov 23 (Wed) – 12pm to 7pm
So you’ll have bottles and growlers to take over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house.
Nov 24 (Thu) – Closed
So our family can spend time with their family.
Nov 25 (Fri) – 12pm to 9pm
Opening early so you can bring/escape (you choose) the family and enjoy a few samples in the tasting room
Nov 26 (Sat) – 12pm to 7pm
Regular hours
Nov 27 (Sun) – 12pm to 6pm
Regular hours

» Click here for more tasting room updates

Cuvee de Tomme 2011

The long wait is over! Cuvee de Tomme 2011 is scheduled for release in the brewery on Saturday December 17, 2011.

While larger than the 2010 release, the total run for this year’s CdT is still extremely limited, so bottles will be a brewery-only release while draft will be available in limited quantity here in Southern California.

» Click for full release details

New Faces:

Kevin Hopkins, Hospitality Manager
If you’ve had the opportunity to visit The Lost Abbey Tasting Room in the past couple of months, you’ve probably noticed a new (old) face behind the bar.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Kevin Hopkins, manager of our new Hospitality department.

As the HM, Kevin’s responsible for overseeing pretty much all of our customer-facing operations including customer service, the tasting room, tours, parties, and special events — both in the brewery and around San Diego (whew).

Those of you who have been members of The Faithful for some time will probably recognize Kevin from his frequent volunteer work at our special events (competence doesn’t go unpunished around here, so we brought him on board and put him in charge), but he’s actually been a craft beer connoisseur long before Lost Abbey — a couple of decades, in fact — first in the U.K. and Europe and later right here in San Diego.

When he’s not serving beer and propounding the superiority of upper Yakima over lower Yakima hops or the many virtues of a good stout, you’ll find Kevin looking up — literally.

Kevin’s a long-time flying buff who doesn’t just love the sound of a plane thundering overhead, he loved it so much, he spent years managing airshows full of them. No too coincidentally, he’s also an accomplished pilot who takes to the air as often as he can. (Good thing too. We need someone to captain The Lost Abbey Airship Gabriel.)

You can catch Kevin in the tasting room most weekdays and the occasional weekend. For all his latest tasting room and local updates, you can also follow him on twitter at @LostAbbeyKevin. On other days, just look overhead. If you see a plane pulling barrel rolls, that’s probably him.

First Ever: Commercial Conclave

Send us a concept for a commercial; win and you get it filmed!

You know the scenario. You’re sitting there with your friends, enjoying a perfect glass of craft beer, and suddenly you’ve got a great idea for a commercial. (If this has never happened to you, you are drinking the wrong kind of beer.)

Well now here’s you’re chance to capitalize on your creativity!

The whole month of December we’ll be accepting submissions for Port Brewing / The Lost Abbey 60 second commercial concepts. From all the submissions we’ll select one concept (via a very serious Conclave process) to be filmed as an actual advertisement for our brewery. The winner will receive an all expenses-paid two-day trip to San Diego, V.I.P. status at Port Brewing / The Lost Abbey and go on set to film the commercial with our acclaimed in-house director, Ryan Tillotson!

Full details, rules, limits, legalese and fine print will be available on The Lost Abbey website starting December 1, 2011.

» Click here for details

New & Upcoming Releases

Now Available – Santa’s Little Helper, Gift of the Magi
Dec 17 – Cuvee de Tomme
Jan 14 – Midnight Expression, The Serpent’s Stout
Jan 21 – Deliverance

Add our upcoming releases and events to your own calendar! » Click here for details

San Diego Beer Week Part Deux

America’s Finest Beer City

The second annual San Diego Beer Week kicks off a 10 day tour de force today with just about every brewery, brewpub, gastropub, bar and bottle shop pulling out all the stops to showcase America’s new craft beer capitol. In all there’ll be more than 200 beer-related events all around the county between today and Sunday the 14th. Naturally, we’ll be out and about next week, talking, eating and, of course, pouring lots of great Lost Abbey and Port Brewing beers.

Here’s a round-up of what’s up and what’s new at Lost Abbey:

Extended Tasting Room Hours

In honor of San Diego Beer Week, we’ll be extending our tasting room hours to be open seven days a week through November 14, giving everyone ample opportunity to drop by and say hello! The SDBW Tasting Room hours are:

Sun: 12pm – 5pm
Mon – Wed: 1pm – 6pm
Thur: 1pm – 4:30pm
Fri: 1pm – 9pm
Sat: 12pm – 6pm

(Note: Saturday, November 13 we will close promptly at 6pm to prepare for our annual barrel party)

For directions to the Tasting Room, please check out our Visit Us section or call (800) 918-6816 x107.

SDBW Events

We’re doing a number of events around town all week long, so you can still experience our beers without making the trek up to the brewery. If you get a chance, pop into one and say hi to the DOBO (aka “Tomme”) and other members of the Lost Abbey Clergy.

Lost Abbey SDBW Events

Nov 6 – San Diego Brewer’s Guild Festival
Nov 8 – Phil’s BBQ
Nov 9 – Churchill’s Pub and Grille
Nov 9 – Encinitas Ale House
Nov 10 – Counterpoint

Nov 10 – Neighborhood
Nov 11 – Stone World Bistro
Nov 11 – JSix Restaurant
Nov 13 – 4th Annual Barrel Tasting Party (sold out)

For a full list of event details, please visit the Events Calendar page.

New Faces

Ken Kline, Plant Manager

Those who’ve been into the Tasting Room during the week in the past couple of months might have noticed a new face around the brewery. Actually, he’s an old, familiar face to this building.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Ken Kline our new (returning) Plant Manager.

No, Ken didn’t used to work here and now he’s back, he’s returning to the brewhouse. Back before Port Brewing / Lost Abbey, our brewhouse was Stone Brewing’s, and Ken was their plant manager. In 2006 when Stone moved to it’s new facility Ken went with it and we’ve pretty much been faking it ever since (read: swearing/praying and lots of duct tape). Gratefully we were recently able to persuade Ken to return to his old brewhouse and re-assume command over all the stuff around here that makes the beer, packs it up and gets it on the loading dock.

Over the next few months Ken will be overhauling our brewhouse (read: swearing/praying and removing duct tape) and overseeing our expansion which includes a shiny new boiler, new tanks, and moving and reconfiguring the bottling line in the new building. For us, all of this means no more flooded floors and bottling line gymnastics. For you it means more Port & Lost Abbey beers!

If you ever happen to drop by the tasting room and see Ken (usually fixing stuff), make sure to say hi. (Don’t, hug him and cry, repeating “thank you, thank you, thank you” though. Turns out after the forth or fifth time it makes him uncomfortable.)

New Beer Releases

Here’s what’s new and upcoming in new beer releases:

Oct 25 – Santa’s Little Helper (Full distribution)
Oct 25 – Mongo Double IPA (Full Distribution, Draft only)
Nov 13 – Veritas 008 (Barrel Party Release)
Nov 20 – Amazing Grace – French Oak Aged Lost & Found (Brewery Only)
Nov 20 – Cuvee de Tomme 2010 (Brewery Only)
Dec 3 – Gift of the Magi (Full distribution)

» Click here for the full beer release calendar