Tomme Arthur, the Director of Operations at The Lost Abbey, joins me this week to discuss Belgian beer styles, producing high end craft beers, sours, barrel aging and more.
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[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/beersmith/BSHB-160-Lost-Abbey.mp3]Topics in This Week’s Episode (44:24)
- Today my guest is Tomme Arthur from The Lost Abbey. Tomme is co-founder and Director of Brewing Operations. Tomme holds an English degree from Northern Arizona University and has worked at a number of breweries as well as White Labs and Pizza Port, which eventually led to the founding of The Lost Abbey in 2006. He holds dozens of medals including GABF, World Beer Cup, Regional and local awards.
- We talk a bit about our experience at the Craft Beer and Brewing retreat where we met.
- Tomme tells us how is love of home brewing evolved into a career in professional brewing.
- We discuss the story behind Lost Abbey which evolved from Tomme’s 10 years working at Pizza Port.
- Tomme explains the philosophy behind the “celebration” bottling and distribution in 750 ml bottles
- We talk about Lost Abbey’s year round lineup of beers.
- He shares why many of Lost Abbey’s beers don’t fit neatly into a single beer style category.
- We discuss the challenges of barrel aging, souring, barrel souring and making complex specialty beers on a commercial scale.
- He shares his thoughts on barrel aging including the barrels they use and methods.
- We discuss his “Gooze” beer as well as Framboise – two difficult styles to produce.
- Tomme shares thoughts aobut his seasonal lineup as well as how they rotate production from season to season.
- We talk about “Red Poppy” which is a celebration of red cherries as well as the complexities of working with fruit.
- I ask Tomme how he decides which beers to produce for their commercial lineup as well as how new beer development is done.
- We talk about his most difficult beer to produce as well as his personal favorite.
- Tomme finishes with his thoughts on crafting beers that are truly unique.
Sponsors
- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
- And also Anvil Brewing Equipment. Anvil is a new line of kettles, burners and accessories from John Blichmann at Blichmann Engineering. They make top quality brewing equipment built to last a lifetime.
- Also check out BeerSmith, BeerSmith Mobile software and the new DVDs John Palmer and I filmed – How to Brew with Malt Extract and How to Brew All Grain are available now. You can subscribe to the BeerSmith newsletter for free to get some great articles on home brewing.
Thanks to Tomme Arthur for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!
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