The Lost Abbey’s eclectic brewmaster, Tomme Arthur, has just been crowned the “rock star of yeast” by Maggie Dutton of Seattle Weekly. Way to rock the metaphor!

The beer world idolizes Tomme (pronounced like Tommy) because of his brewing experiments with microorganisms, which have won masses of awards. For too long, mega-strains of yeast have dominated craft as well as commercial beer in America. If I may geek out for a few sentences, Tomme messes around with a particular strain of yeasts, Brettanomyces (“Brett” for short). Many brewers consider the appearance of Brett in their beer a flaw, a result of unclean brewing practices. However, a number of traditional Belgian brewers have learned to control the yeast, producing some amazingly complex beers, including the entire lambic family and many brown and red ales.

If you’re unfamiliar—and you should be, because The Lost Abbey beers are fairly new, not to mention limited and rare even on their native West Coast (San Diego, Ca.)—this brewery is an outgrowth of the Port Brewing Co./Pizza Port and it was there that Arthur cultivated his “brewmastery.” The words been out on his Belgian interpretations for years, but only recently (just over a year) has The Lost Abbey been bottling.

The fantastic timing of all this is our June shipment from Michael Jackson’s Rare Beer Club which is The Lost Abbey’s Devotion Ale. Did we mention how excited we are?

The Lost Abbey also maintains a beer blog here.

Source: Seattle Weekly
Image: The Lost Abbey