From the Beer Writer: San Marcos’ The Lost Abbey is well known for its Belgian-inspired ales. Of their core offerings, a favorite of mine has always been Inferno Ale. It represents a challenging vision forged to life by a top-notch brewer. Director of Brewery Operations Tomme Arthur set out to recreate the Belgian golden strong ale archetype, Duvel, and knocked it out of the park with Inferno. Production of that beer has since been shelved, but its legend lives on in the brewery’s latest offering, The Lost Abbey Genesis of Shame. The same yeast strain used to ferment Inferno was used to ferment the base blonde ale that was aged in one of The Lost Abbey’s pair of oak foeders before being blended and finished with peaches and Brettanomyces to create this complex beer. As a result, the beer has an inherent spiciness reminiscent of Duvel and Inferno, plus a sticky, fluffy, snow-white head so durable you could camp under it in a hailstorm. The aroma is big on floral and stone-fruit character with a subtle touch of verdant funk, while the taste offers slight tartness and a touch of Brett spiciness with light peachiness bringing everything together. The name Genesis of Shame is a nod to Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden for consuming forbidden fruit. Fortunately, this beer is not taboo, because it’s a tasty introduction to The Lost Abbey’s foeder forays.
From the Brewer: “Genesis of Shame was developed to replace our Ten Commandments as the summer seasonal for 2017. We knew going into the process that we wanted to create a Brett-forward beer and marry some beer from our oak-aging program with a beer that was primary fermented in stainless steel. Back in 2016, we commissioned two 110-barrel French oak foeders and filled them with a blond sour base beer. Foeder #1 was the more active of the two and displayed some awesome Brett notes with a very soft oak finish. The final blend was 20% of the foeder beer married with 80% of the base beer. We also spiked the batch with some peach concentrate to build a refreshing beer with a tartness that accentuates the fruitiness. Our crew chose Brettopia to finish out the beer. While there was Brett in the foeder, it only accounted for 20% of the final blend. We used about half of the 3,400 gallons in the tank to produce Genesis of Shame. Some of the residual liquid will be blended into an anniversary beer for our friends at Monk’s Cafe in Philadelphia. The last of the beer in Foeder 1 is set to be released into full distribution the first week of September. Foeder #1 is off to a great start and adding amazing opportunities for our brewers to imagine and implement new beers. It was refilled this past weekend and we hope it will be ready to provide more beer in the fall of 2018 or early 2019.”—Tomme Arthur, Director of Brewery Operations, The Lost Abbey