We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tomme Arthur a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tomme, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for The Lost Abbey Brewing Company was not mine. I was made aware of the name from my original partners who relayed the “Thought” of building a brewery called The Lost Abbey. It would feature Belgian style beers made in the United States in the Abbey Monastic Brewing Tradition. From the first moment I heard the name, I knew it had great bones and could convey a sense or mystic aura for our brand.

Having grown up Catholic, I was well aware of the oldest biblical stories and the connections to society they portrayed. It was then that I started working on the branding for the beers. We knew there would need to be a connection to our beers so we branded them “For Sinners and Saints Alike.” On a secondary level we wove a narrative about good vs evil beers to explore what made us different.

The most successful brands have a unique way of connecting with their audiences through a mix of emotion and needs. I feel we crafted our origin story to accomplish this at a very high level. Given the state of craft beer (both in San Diego and Nationally) back in 2006 when we opened our doors, we were able to position ourselves as one of the more unique breweries and garnered much commercial and competitive success for our releases.

Many of the beers were praised for their use of wood barrel aging and microbial souring to explore the boundaries of beer and reaching for flavors that were not common. It was a great time to build the brand and execute the vision we had.

Tomme, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been in the Craft Brewing Business since 1996. I was 23 years old when I got my first brewery job. In the time since then, I have worked for three breweries and was lucky enough to help Co-Found The Lost Abbey in 2006.

My peers have recognized my contributions. In 2018 I was awarded The Russell Schehrer Award from the Brewers Association for Innovation in Brewing. This is a life time achievement award that is given annually to one brewer who has endeavored and committed to advancing craft beer in the United States. At that time, I was the 22nd recipient. The list now numbers 28 brewers.

All told, I have been part of the brewing business for over half my life. It continues to energize me in ways that most can’t fathom. The people, the companies and consumers bring so much energy to my daily work.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Last year in May of 2023 we had to say goodbye to our original brewery location. We had been making beer in San Marcos, since 2006. It was bittersweet as all of our beers had been made on that brewing system so it was full slate of emotions leaving that equipment behind as we transferred it to another brewery owner.

Today we are a Vista based company and have restarted our operations using a smaller brewing system. This has provided us more flexibility to create new recipes and engage our consumers in new and fun ways.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to purchase some intellectual property (IP) from another brewery. We wanted to produce a new line of beers and needed an umbrella for their branding which was separate from The Lost Abbey. A friend of mine owned the rights to “Tiny Bubbles” for naming in beer. So we worked to acquire that brand (buying the rights) and then set about to rebrand it for our needs. It was a moderately seamless transition and it went about as smooth as I could have hoped.

We still own the rights to it today and it’s something that I feel will be a big part of our future. Tiny Bubbles is a fun notion and the beers in that portfolio are brightly flavored sour beers with great fruit contributions.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lostabbey.com
• Instagram: lostabbey
• Facebook: lostabbey
• Linkedin: none
• Twitter: lostabbey
• Youtube: none
• Yelp: The Confessional by Lost Abbey, The Sanctuary by Lost Abbey, The Church by Lost Abbey
• Soundcloud: none
• Other: none

Image Credits

All Images Supplied by Lost Abbey Brewing LLC