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Striking gold in the Windy City

The Lost Abbey Brewing takes first place in inaugural year of Blended Beer category at Chicago’s Festival of Wood & Barrel-aged Beers

Winning awards is nothing new for Tomme Arthur. The owner of North County’s The Lost Abbey Brewing has ascended the steps of many a stage to collect medals, plaques and trophies at local, national and international brewing competitions over the past 18 years. So, when he says the garnering of another award is not only meaningful but “unique”, you know it’s a big deal. Such was his reaction to one of The Lost Abbey’s creations taking gold at the Festival of Wood & Barrel-Aged Beers.

Held annually in Chicago by the Illinois Brewers Guild, the festival has taken place for more than two decades. The Lost Abbey has performed well, nabbing best-of-show honors for three of its beers (barrel-aged sour ales Red Poppy in 2010, Duck Duck Gooze in 2013 and Veritas 013 in 2014), with a trio of the company’s other beers named runner-up to best-of-show winners in three separate years.

While The Lost Abbey was not among best-of-show honorees this year (ChiTown’s Half Acre Beer Co. came out on top with fellow Illinois operation Black Horizon Brewing nipping at their heels), Arthur is every bit as proud about taking the top spot in a brand new category that, going into the event, he believed was more out of reach: Blended Beer.

“This win was unexpected because this was a first-year category and we had zero inclination how it would be judged. We only had two entries in the competition, but this was the one I was most excited about,” says Arthur. “It was a blend of Serpent’s Stout aged in two different barrels and a barrel-aged version of our Belgian-style quadrupel Judgment Day. It’s called Serpent’s Kiss and is a specialty release we produced for the thirtieth anniversary of The Rare Beer Club.”

Arthur was on-hand in the Windy City to accept his award, which was presented in the form of an engraved barrel stave on Saturday, November 23.

Back at home, The Lost Abbey’s team is hard at work moving out of the Vista tasting room they shared with Mother Earth Brew Co. at that company’s Thibodo Road campus for the past 11 months. The Lost Abbey has signed on to move into Eppig Brewing’s 16,000-square-foot headquarters, also in Vista, and brew its beers on that facility’s 30-barrel system. That transition will be complete by the second full week of December.

Following the move, The Lost Abbey will share the public-facing portion of the building – a tasting room, game lounge and outdoor patio – with Eppig and other brands that, like it, are managed by West Coast Ventures & Resources LLC, including Mason Ale Works and Second Chance Beer Co. Arthur says timing on that is dependent on receiving necessary approvals from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

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