Tomme Arthur of The Lost Abbey

How do you celebrate fifteen Great American Beer Festival medals and back-to-back GABF Small Brewery Brewer of the Year nods? You open up a new brewing and bottling plant, and start distribution of two new lines of beer. Tomme Arthur, of San Marcos, CA’s legendary Pizza Port and The Lost Abbey, isn’t resting on his laurels—he’s dousing them in exotic yeasts and fruit, throwing them in a copper kettle, and seeing what comes out.

1. Don’t study brewing, but don’t hang out with high school kids, either
Arthur originally wanted to be a high school English teacher. He got his BA in English from Northern Arizona University and even en- rolled in a master’s program at San Diego State, before deciding that being stuck in a classroom all day working, and not at home brewing, “just wasn’t gonna work out.” He bolted and got the first brewing job he could find, working under Troy Hojel at San Diego’s Cervecerias La Cruda. “[Hojel] had a communications degree. His success was based on communicating with other people, and he hired me with my English degree.”

2. Build it before you brew it
Before the pair could make beer, they first had to make a place to make the beer—by hand. “Working side by side, laying pipe, we’d talk. He’d explain, ‘We’re doing this for this reason; this is what hap- pens inside this piece we’re assembling.’ Everything became predicated on a foundation built on equipment. He really showed me how beer is made.”

3. Treat beer like food
When chefs cook, Arthur says, they make decisions “based on flavor—they’re look- ing for a specific taste, flavor, texture or hook. My brewing process starts from me thinking in these terms. I’m looking for this flavor, maybe followed by that flavor. I don’t believe in being esoteric for esoteric’s sake. I’m looking for a specific flavor foundation to pinpoint that expression.”

4. Barrels are only cool if you use them right
“Barrel aging is very fashionable right now,” Arthur says. But he cautions that you can’t expect to throw any brew into any barrel and come out with anything that’s worth drinking. Instead, brewers should approach barrel aging the way winemakers do—by experimenting with different types of wood, and tailoring each beer’s malt foundation to the barrel it’s destined for.

5. Focus on flavor, not style
Arthur’s new Lost Abbey line will pursue a series of “Non-Denominational Ales”—beer that blurs the line between beer and wine, and that begins with a specific blend of flavors, not a governing style, as its base. “We’re not really constrained by the four traditional ingredients; we prefer flavor-driven beer, beer that’s pushed in different directions.”

6. Brown Ales are boring, Belgians are versatile
“We’ve done all kinds of great things within the Belgian framework,” Arthur says. “We were one of the first breweries in San Diego to use different kinds of wild yeast and microorganisms. We do a lot with barrel aging, and beers with higher alcohol. We try to stay away from just, ‘This is our Brown Ale at 5 percent.’ It’s boring.”

7. Belgians aren’t just versatile—they’re art
“The Belgians saw real possibilities for artistic outlets, as opposed to conforming. They found a place for art in their role as brewers. I was turned on by that. We’re really working towards making a lot of beers in that experience. Lots of other styles don’t have that range to experiment.”

8. Sometimes a total failure’s a hit
In 2002, Arthur brewed up his biggest failure, Pizza Port’s Late Harvest beer. It was supposed to blend beer and wine, and although it was “very well received by a lot of people,” Arthur wasn’t at all happy about it. “I was looking for a certain characteristic—a Port-like quality. We never got all the pieces to match. We used bourbon barrels, not wine; we didn’t use the right grapes; we used fresh grape juice. That was one big success that was a failure in my mind.”

9. Guilty pleasures? Sure—don’t fear the swill
“Everybody and their mother seems to be drinking PBR right now, so it’s fair to put that on the list. And I’ve been known to mow the lawn with a Coors Light in my hand. People ask why. As a brewer, sometimes you just want to turn that switch off—you don’t want a beer in your hand that you have to think about. You don’t want a beer that challenges you to stop and find wonderment in it.” ■