A First Visit to Lost Abbey Brewing
Lost Abbey
As part of brief San Diego County brewery tour last week, along with a couple of other guys, following our first brewery at Bagby Brewing, we then made a stop for a duo of breweries. Located in the original location for Stone Brewing, both Lost Abbey Brewing and Port Brewing share a space. It’s in a warehouse that is spacious and they have free 1oz bags of Snyder’s of Hanover Bacon Cheddar Pretzel Pieces (OU-D) available complimentarily for customers, which is really cool. Since we started off with the Lost Abbey beers, I, too, will begin discussing Lost Abbey, leaving Port Brewing for a future post.
Board of Beers at Lost Abbey
For our drinking, our trio shared 4oz tasters of the beer. We started off with Devotion (6.5% ABV), a dry-hopped blonde ale, which I found to be banana-y, crisp, and nice. Next up was Avant Garde (7.0% ABV), a French-style “bier de Garde” farmhouse ale, which was pleasant. Then we had Red Barn (6.7 % ABV), a spiced saison made with ginger, orange peel, black pepper, and grains of paradise, which was very pleasant, with a pleasant effervesence, and it would be lovely on a summer day. Next up was Lost & Found (8.0% ABV), an abbey-style dubbel made with a sweet malt finish, which had a raisiny nose and taste and was noticeably malty. Then we had Judgment Day (10.5% ABV), an abbey-style quad made with raisins and a chewy malt finish, which was really tasty, nicely-flavored, only a little sense that it’s boozy. Then we had the 10 Commandments (12.0% ABV), a Belgian dark strong ale with saison yeast, brettanomyces, blackened raisins, orange peel, honey, and rosemary, I found to be fruity, and citrusy, which was not really my thing, but I recognize that it’s good.
Bourbon Santa’s
The stuff on the main drafts were good, but the special beers were great! Of these special beers, we started off with the Cuvée de Tomme (11.0% ABV), which was lovely: sour and delicious. Then we had the Framboise de Amorosa (8.5% ABV), which was very delicious! It was fruity, sour, cherry, and bourbon barrel-aged. We then had Bourbon Santa’s (13.7% ABV), which had been aged in bourbon barrels and had a vanilla nose, big, boozy, delicious, but not crazy sweet. Then our bartender gave us a blend of the Bourbon Santa’s and the Framboise de Amorosa, which was a brilliantly delicious combination of the sourness and fruitiness of the framboise with the big, boozy character of the Bourbon Santa’s. Props to that bartender!
Framboise de Amorosa
I couldn’t tell which was my favorite, either the Cuvée de Tomme or the Framboise de Amorosa, but they were both very tasty and tart sour beers, which were delicious. I should also mention that the regular beers are $1 for the 4oz, while the special beers were $5 for the same amount of beer. However, it was clear why they were more pricey – they were also a lot more delicious!
