Tomme | February 24, 2007

As you all know by now, we opened Port Brewing with two sets of beers including a whole new package and label called The Lost Abbey. It’s something that we have wanted to do for many years now. Each new beer that we release comes with the challenges of scaling up old recipe favorites AND the ceation of labels and artwork.

In my duties as Steward of the Lost Abbey Vision, I am responisble for getting the message about each beer out. Essentially, I work from start to finish on the recipe through the fermentation to the bottling and labeling to ensure each matches my thought process for the beer.

These days, it isn’t enought to just make a great beer and sit back as it sells. There is so much marketing and strategy that goes into these beers as well. Lately, I have been paying a lot of attention to wineries and their brands when I am out shopping. Mostly I am watching their labels and positioning to see what is out there. AND for the most part, I am very amused.

It appears that wineries can just pop out of thin air in the something from nothing principle. Mostly, it start out with someone having a vision. Typically a name is developed(this is really why I started this thread) because winery names are so damn interesting to me.

You need to be romantic. So you start with a natural element- perhaps something like fog. Perhaps your vineyard gets a ton of shade? Or maybe your soil is rocky and terraced. So you start playing around with these terms. And you need to sell the story of the winery.

Let’s go back to the Fog. Perhaps there is a coastal fog that creeps in every summer afternoon during harvest. Surely this is what makes the Pinot so soft and supple? Inevitably, you’re going to tell people about this unique microclimate. So your winery needs to be built around this. Maybe your brand will be coastal fog(too generic). It’s possible there is a valley connected with the property. Let’s go with the argument that coastal sage grows in this valley. The next working title becomes Sage Fog Winery conjuring up images of a sweet smelling Fog?(Too Esoteric). Perhaps you were out drinking wine on a Sunday when you saw this parcel of land?

You parked the car…walked out into the fields with your sweetheart. A picnic broke out. In the midst of amazing wine and cheese(because they pair so well) you were both suddenly enveloped in this afternoon fog sweeping through the valley? It was then that you decided it best to buy this parcel of land and start up your own winery. But what to call it? How about Sunday Fog? Nah that’s too Romantic. How about Sunday Sage? Coastal Sage, or better yet Sunday Valley?

Bingo! Sunday Valley. I mean who doesn’t love Sunday and valleys are amazing places full of discovery right? And so it is that Sunday Valley Winery is launched and a whole set of wines from grapes not grown anywhere near Sunday Valley(a very real place in most peoples minds I might add) is created. Sales of Sunday Valley Pinot Noir ensue and the story of a coastal sage fog creeping through the valley are now fully embedded in the minds of wine drinkers everywhere looking for an escape from this world.

People notice and across the valley another winery opens. There’s a little rise in this parcel of land with an oak tree standing like a sentinel on watch. And the new winery opens with a name like Shady Oak or Oak Springs because wineries always have two word names. I think it would most likely be Oak Springs beause the nice people across the way at the Sunday Valley winery have the Fog thing going for them as well. So, they’ve cornered the market on Summer Fog but what about Spring Rains?

Oak Springs then sets out to tell the story of April Showers bringing May flowers and the importance of early rain to a great harvest. And then the story of the mighty old oak standing watch over the Oak Springs Winery takes over. Suddenly, land is getting scarce in this area what with all that great Fog rolling in.

So the guy at the outskirts of the valley suddenly is stuck with one of the oldest and previously least desirable parcels. It’s full of rock and the land was previously terraced for some sort of fruit trees that will become important later when the story is created.

So Johnny come lately with rocky soil is tasked with creating his brand and winery name. He begins mulling his options and starts out knowing he must incorporate those damn rocks somehow. So immediately he starts with Rocky Terraces(too generic). He gets more in touch with his feminine side and thinks about those fruit trees. He closes his eyes and is surrounded by Peach trees. Stoned Fruit winery he thinks to himself. That’s a little too esoteric as well(not to mention Dazed and Confused in a cloud of smoke sort of way. Then he opens his eyes, looks out over the parcel and realizes that he has the best view of the valley and Peachy Orchard Bella Vista winery is born. Sure he’ll have to overcome a four word winery name but most people will just drop the Bella Vista part. He won’t of course because he will need the vista sales pitch to open the most spectacular wine garden patio in the area.

His story will be about the old fruit orchards and their importance to the commerce of the valley. Of course he will incorporate a fruity wine into the mix(not even knowing how possible this will be given his steely terrior). Life will be good at Peachy Orchard Bella Vista as people will fill the valley to tour the area famous for its Sagey Coastal Fog which thickens on Sundays but only after the rain soaked Spring Oaks have dried out and thoughts turn to ripening stone fruits and Rocky Terraced Peachy Orchards. Too bad most of the grapes will come from the Central Coast area of California because the land surrounding the Sunday Valley, Oak Springs and Peachy Orhards Bella Vista wineries only gets a blossoming coastal sage infused fog on Sundays.

The funny thing is, we all know and were taught on the 7th Day God rested. So how do they do it? The mystery remains. So if you will please excuse me, I have some tannin units to go measure.

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Tomme | February 24, 2007

I have been chasing this blog for the past 6 weeks now trying like hell to get it written. In the 11 short months that our beers have beers have been flowing out of this establishment, we have garnered some pretty darn cool press and we wanted to share these things with you.

Some of you may have seen the Men’s Journal Magazine from October 2006. In this issue, they reviewed a ton of beers and developed a list of the top 25 American Beers. The Lost Abbey Avant Garde landed on the list at number 23. This was a great list of beers to be on and it included many of our friends in the business. We even shared the list of 25 beers with our San Diego friends down at AleSmith Brewing Co.

More recently, The Lost Abbey beers have graced the cover of Saveuer magazine. This is an amazing food and gourmand magazine which highlights all things great and artisinal from cheese to curries. Each year the magazine creates a list of the Top 100 best things to look out for. The Lost Abbey landed on the list at #42. Just being on the list was an honor but our bottles even graced the cover of the magazine with 11 other of the Top 100. If you visit the brewery in the future, this will most certainly be framed and mounted on our walls.

No sooner had the Saveuer magazine hit the newstands when our newest copy of Draft Magazine landed in our mailbox. This is a very new publication about the lifestyle of beer. The issue featured an article by Don Russell considering the Top 10 Breweries to pay attention to in 2007.

Much to our surprise, The Lost Abbey landed at the top of the list. Being named # 1 on the list came as a complete shock. Starting a new brewery is hard enough. Launching another brand to go with it is nuts. To have that brand land in two magazines “Best of” lists is crazy and puts an enormous amount of stress on us to make the best beers possible.

Is it worth it? Sure thing. Do we love the attention? Who wouldn’t? I also wanted to point out that I was bummed when we weren’t named to the Playboy list of beers. I’d like that tax write off. Um…a one years subcription to a “gentlemans magazine?” Yes sir they cover beer you know.

Yet, even without Playboy and their nice “articles” or lack there of in terms of articles of clothing, it sure is nice to be held in such a high regard. Do these lists make our beers taste any better? Certainly not. What they do make for is nice promotional opportunities to get our beers and messages in front of new consumers. As producers of unique beers, this is all we can hope for.

I also wanted to pimp our wares and share with you some of our competitive successes from the past 6 months. In November, the Innagural Barrel Aged Beer Festival was held in Hayward, California at the Bistro. The Bistro has been hosting IPA and Double IPA festivals for many years now. When I was brewing in Solana Beach, we were fortunate enough to win each of these festivals. Swamis IPA and HOP 15 each were named Best of the Fest during a previous life.

Back in November, we sent four different beers to the barrel aged beer festival. When the results were tallied, The Angel’s Share finished second in its category. Older Viscosity finished first in the Bourbon Barrel category and went on to compete against 5 other beers in the Best of Show round where it garnered the BOS award.

Fast forward to this last weekend in San Francisco at the epic annual Toronado Barleywine Festival. We again sent a keg of The Angel’s Share and out of a field of almost 60 beers, we finished 2nd. Congrats to the boys(and girls) at Alaskan Brewing Company who bested one of the best beers I have ever made.

In less than a year, we have cranked up this great brewing facility and continued the great spirited brewing that our friends and customers have come to expect from Pizza Port and Port Brewing. It feels good to know that our high expectations of ourselves and our beers continue even though we aren’t brewing within a stone’s throw of the ocean anymore.

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Tomme | February 19, 2007

We just returned from a week long trip to the East Coast and as such, there were more beers than I could shake a stick at. So tonight, my musings are coming at you care of Clynelish 14 year old Scotch. Last week, I tried to start a blog on a Friday night at the brewery but alas, my wit was no match for the Knob Creek Bourbon that was tempting me from my office. And so it is, that I am sitting here now writing about beer with a Scotch in hand. Life is cruel. I know.

You ever have one of those weeks? You know the kind where no matter how hard you try, you end up leaving four hours of work on the table each day knowing full well that the weekend won’t offer a respite? Life has kind of been this way for me since the start of the new year. Those of you who have visited our brewery may have noticed that we have ramped up production big time and are now seemingly bottling beer no less than twice a week. This is fantastic as it allows for more beer to head out the door. However, this is not so good as bottling days usually require about 11 hours of my time each day that we bottle.

Typically, I arrive at the brewery around 7 AM (depends on how well Syd Vicious slept the night before). My day then starts with calculations for the bottling. The first step required is to test the beer we are bottling for the CO2 content in solution. This is an indicator of how much CO2 is in the beer relative to the target volumes we are looking to get in the finished beer. On our Port Brewing beers like Old Viscosity and Wipeout IPA, we are shooting for 2.8 volumes of CO2.

Our starting point on these beers is typically 2.0 volumes of CO2 and therefore we need to gain .8 volumes of CO2 per bottle. We take this starting number and crunch the numbers in the computer along with the total volume of beer to be bottled. With this information in hand, we then work on a “priming solution” which is Dextrose mixed in hot water to dissolve the sugar. This mixture is then racked into a keg.

The sugar needs to be blended into the beer along with fresh yeast which will consume these sugars thereby finishing our secondary fermentation in the bottle and giving us the necessary CO2 levels that we need in each bottle. In order to mix the sugars, yeast and beer, we must first create a recirculation loop with a pump in order to homogenize the mixture of the three. This has to be done before we can start bottling so more often than not, I am the first one to arrive to get this part of the day rolling.
Around 8:30- 9:00 the reinforcements arrive. At this time, Josh , Vince myself and Bo begin the arduous task of bottling. It isn’t all that much fun standing in one place for at least 7 hours watching the bottler go up and down or the capper doing the same. On the days when we bottle our 22 oz bottles we only need three people to bottle- although four means we can go faster. At best when we do this style bottle, we can rip off 50 cases an hour. However, when we bottle the 750 ml bottles with cork finish, it takes at least 4 people and the best we can do is 40 cases per hour.

What does all this mean? Lately, we have been brewing larger batches of beer. Many of these larger batches will enable us to get “ahead” as these beer age well and can handle being produced in larger quantities. We are currently up to speed on all of our bottled beers that we have been making. This will allow us to get the new beers online that we have been chasing for the past 6 months. This week, we will be bottling Judgment Day our Belgian style QUAD. We also will be working on a new batch of Hop 15 for bottling.
Both of these are incredibly exciting for me as we have been talking about them for almost one year now. I am sure that our friends and patrons feel the same way as well. However, I think that I am most excited about the batch of beer that is rolling away in Fermenter # 5. This is our anniversary beer which will be called 10 Commandments. It is a recreation of our SPF 8 recipe from Solana Beach that features caramelized raisins, honey and fresh Rosemary. If you have spent any amount of time listening to me speak over the years, you would have realized this to be one of my favorite beers and perhaps the one that I feel ages the best.

As such, we are going to make this our annual release. It will be timed to coincide with our anniversary party and the beer will be made once a year to celebrate another year gone. It appears that this party will take place each May. We have had numerous inquiries about the party (and it’s only February)! The hardest part to imagine is that we have been in this space for over 9 months now. That is some seriously fast flying time. As I said earlier, we have many more great things in store this year and this is merely but one of them.

But I suppose I should get back to the meat of this post. If you have been anxiously awaiting my post with every breath, you can breathe now. The thing about bottling is that it is all encompassing and it requires undivided attention. This means that while I used to have some spare time to blog during the brewing days, I no longer have this luxury when we are bottling. A four man crew equals Tomme bottling beer as well. So, it’s not that I have been lazy or neglecting my writing. On the contrary, I have been bummed that I haven’t been able to write. I think this will hopefully be the last 5 week hiatus that I have to embark on without being able to blog.

Until next time then.

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