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Libri Divini – November 2011

| November 22, 2011

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

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.

Kevin Hopkins


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!

Got an Idea for an Ad?


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

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

 

Beer Release: Cuvee de Tomme 2011

| November 16, 2011

Date: December 17 December 24, 2011 – 12:00pm – 7:00pm

This will be the release date for Cuvee de Tomme 2011, our multi-award winning bourbon barrel-aged aged strong ale with sour cherries.

Cuvee de Tomme 2011

Release Details:

  • Style: Cuvee de Tomme 2011
  • Format: 375ml cork-stoppered bottles
  • Price: $15 per bottle
  • Limits: 6 bottles per person

Supplies of this beer are extremely limited. Bottle sales will be brewery only and a select quantity of draft will be available in the Southern California region, however, it will not reach any of our other distribution areas (sorry).

Because we expect this beer to sell out quickly, we’ll open our doors at 11am for registration; bottle sales will begin at 12pm.

Standard disclaimer: This is a barrel-aged beer. As such release dates are subject to change based on the whims of the barrels.

Update 1: 12/14/11 – Release has been delayed by one week to December 24, 2011.

Libri Divini – August 2010

| August 27, 2010

In This Issue


From the Director’s Scribe’s Chair
What we did on our summer vacation

Editor’s Note: This spot is normally reserved for a few words from our director of brewery operations (DOBO), but Tomme’s off doing important DOBO things, so our Abbey Scribe, Sage, is filling in for him this month.

Sage the Abbey ScribeI am staring at a calendar above my desk that tells me the Great American Beer Festival is exactly three weeks from today. GABF? Already? Where did the summer go?

Oh, that’s right, we’ve been busy. So busy, in fact, that not only did we not get a vacation, we missed the July issue of this newsletter altogether. Let’s see… Cuvee punted to football season, Santa showed in July, our buddy Russ brought strawberries, the Witch came back witty as ever, and we found the Road to Helles to be paved with great beer. Plus, the brewhouse boys became the brewhouse boys and girl, the tasting room got a little more elbow room and we had everyone down for breakfast before Stone Brewing’s anniversary party.

Add that to a release angels and demons in the Abbey tomorrow, a tidal wave of fresh hops in a week or two, Denver mid-month, a return just in time for a beer and boobs and finally, a fine (and long-anticipated) Cuvee de Tomme to finish September.

Yikes. And I thought we were busy.

I’ll tell you what. You catch up on what’s new at Lost Abbey below. Me, I need to go and find a bigger calendar.


Christmas in July Wrap-up

Christmas in July 2010

Back on July 24th we held our annual Christmas in July party and fund raiser. If you’re not familiar with our (non)holiday shindig, each year we celebrate the release of barreled Santa’s Little Helper (aged in bourbon barrels for a year) with a Christmas party and fundraiser to benefit Toys for Tots. There’s food, music, photos with Santa and — of course — great beer, so it always ends up being quite the celebration.

This year we raised nearly $10,000 in toy and cash donations for Toys for Tots. Thanks to the generosity of our guests that day, a lot of kids will have have a better Christmas than they might otherwise.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend, we have a huge photo gallery of the day’s festivities. If you did come to the party, we’ve also posted all the Santa photos, so you can pick yours up (just in time for Christmas card season!)


New Faces at Lost Abbey

Devon Randall

At her age it might be premature to call Devon Randall “the Most Interesting Woman in the World”, but she’s certainly on the right track to earn the title.

A Berkeley grad who’s conquered real estate, climbed mountains, run with Alaskan sled dogs, and sailed a catamaran from South Africa to Trinidad in just a few short years, even Vladimir Putin would have a hard time not being impressed with her achievements.

Devon discovered craft beer while still living in Berkeley and quickly took to homebrewing. Two years later she found herself living in Santa Monica, California, and traveling south in her spare time to San Diego to learn what she could about the beer Mecca. It wasn’t long after, in her typical fashion, Devon decided to make a “dramatic” change, dump her current occupation, and jump into craft brewing with both feet even though she didn’t have a job waiting.

At first she made the 90 mile from LA to San Diego trip daily volunteering at breweries and learning what she could. This eventually led to some part time work at The Lost Abbey where her talent and abilities were quickly realized. She made the move from Santa Monica to San Diego in June and became an official member of our brewhouse team in August.

These days you’ll find Devon doing everything from brewing to bottling, soaking up as much knowledge as she can with an eye towards being a “famous girl brewer” with her own brewpub down the road. Given all she’s already accomplished, we have no doubt she’ll succeed.

If you happen to see Devon in the brewery or at a Lost Abbey event, make sure to say hi and buy her a beer. (Saisons are her favorite.)


Upcoming Events

September 17-19
Great American Beer Festival | Denver, CO
This is the big one. The one where, as the DOBO says, “we bring the noise”. Look for us in the Lost Abbey and Port Brewing booths in the Pacific section of the festival itself as well as our peeps making appearances around town during the week. (follow us @lostabbey on Twitter to find out where we’ll be.)

September 24
Beer for Boobs | Lost Abbey Brewery San Marcos, CA
Help us & our friends at White Labs support support the Susan G. Komen philanthropic trust and The 3 Day event to help find a cure for breast cancer. $10 gets you you a commemorative Beer for Boobs pint glass and two pints of any Lost Abbey or Port Brewing beer on tap.


New Beer Releases

August 28, 12pm — 6pm
Deliverance
Our first release of the embodiment of good versus evil in a barrel-aged blend. Part bourbon barreled The Serpent’s Stout, and part brandy barreled The Angel’s Share, this is our most anticipated release of the summer. (May reach limited distribution)

September 25, 12pm — 6pm
Cuvee de Tomme
A release pushed back repeatedly by cool weather and barrels unwilling to create the beer any faster, the 2010 vintage of Cuvee finally emerges after nearly a year and a half in the barrel. (May reach limited distribution)

October 4
High Tide
Our autumn fresh-hopped IPA, the release of this one actually depends on the timing of the hop harvest. The past two years the harvest & brew dates were in the first week of September. Based on that we anticipate the release by the first week in October. (Will reach full distribution)

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