Tomme Arthur has been innovating so long in the craft space that he has innovated on his innovations. The brewer behind The Lost Abbey, he has inspired countless brewers and drinkers with his ales of note. Constantly pushing the envelope of flavor, time, and creativity, while staying rooted in history, his beer continue to win awards and the hearts of customers.
In conversations past he has lamented the lack of innovation in the craft beer industry, even while it was growing at a breakneck pace. He spoke with All About Beer editor and ProBrewer contributor John Holl about his thoughts on the state of the industry.
John Holl: I was thinking back to conversations that we’ve had in the past where you were lamenting the fact that there was not much innovation in the space and that you were trying to do calls to action [to other brewers] to innovate, as opposed to just following the trends. With that in mind, here we are towards the end of 2024, what’s your take on where innovation stands in the beer space?
Tomme Arthur: We’ve got, what is it, 40 percent of all craft beer as IPA these days. So, I would say that that’s probably one area where I still think hasn’t really seen as much innovation as I think is possible. I
I really think there’s room within the IPA space to do a lot more, but it’s going to take people, not necessarily from a hop perspective, I think it comes with a whole bunch of different lift points. In terms of the historical innovation, we’ve brought a lot of new ideas to the table, and people skillfully executed on them and built businesses around them, and the consumer doesn’t seem to embrace them the way that we used to.
So, the question, really, I guess, is, does the consumer demand innovation, or is the consumer interested in something else?
John Holl: Isn’t there an argument to be made of the consumer isn’t necessarily looking for innovation, but they are looking for what the brewers are interested in, or what the brewers lead them towards?
Tomme Arthur: I think back to the day that used to be, where brewers would drag the consumer to a place they wanted to take them. But it doesn’t seem that many brewers want to participate in that sort of march, because it’s expensive and difficult. It’s fraught with peril. If you don’t succeed you’ve got batches of beer that aren’t moving. So it’s got some very interesting consumer points to it. It’s a lot easier to make a new double dry hop hazy IPA smack a can label on it and sell 200 cases than it is to put an innovation pipeline together and use that to pull consumers into your circle.
John Holl: What’s the downside to that for the overall industry?
Tomme Arthur: I think it leads to a lot of homogenized products. I think it leads to a lot of same and lack of differentiation. I think it breeds sense of complacency in the sense that basically, you get a bunch of brewers who aren’t willing to take giant leaps anymore, and you end up with a a cross section of beer on the shelf. It all looks and tastes the same.
John Holl: When you’re thinking about innovation in your own beer making, is there a rule book to follow? Are there guiding principles?
Tomme Arthur: I think the first one has to be the authenticity part of it. Would I drink it? And I think there’s a lot to be said for if we put something out into the market, and I don’t want to drink it, but it’s incredibly esoteric and innovative, and it’s got sheep’s balls in it, then great.
But I’m not necessarily interested in participating in the conversation that way. I’d really want people to understand that if we’re making something, that we consider it to be very innovative or unique, and that there’s a reason that we produced it and produce it in that manner. I’ve always said that I don’t believe in esoteric for esoteric sake.
I really think that’s a strong part of innovation. You can be the weirdest kid in the class just because you want to be weird, but that doesn’t make you truly weird. I mean, it just means you’re playing a bit, right?
John Holl: What about outside of beer and beer making? You’ve gone into other beverages along the way.
Tomme Arthur: Some of it was born out of the industry changing. Some of it was born out of financial need. When we flip the switch on 2025 next year, that will be our 19th year in business as The Lost Abby. It’ll be my 29th year in the business of being a brewer or brewery operator. That’s a long time in a product life cycle. So definitely, I’m starting to understand how some of this stuff does cyclically, come back through and kind of where we want to be, in the in that path.
I think the sort of the last two years have really taught us that we were a big part of a very unique forest, right? Like, there’s all kinds of different trees and things in the forest. And we were marching to our own thing, and we had our own path carved out, and then some of that just kind of evaporated.
So for me, it was a little bit of a gut check in the sense of well, I can make Red Poppy, but is anyone going to buy it? We’ve got to get back to a point where we know that making this beer is important and when I speak of getting back into having the oak program that we have, it’s that there’s going to be compelling reasons why we make a third case run of something versus it being a 50 case run, or 400 cases versus 50 cases.
The issue with specialty beer right now is that the people who buy specialty releases are fewer and far in between, and they have cellars full of beer that they don’t know what to do with. So their enthusiasm for hyper consumer stuff is probably lower than it was even when we first started. The veracity of the appetite, the level to which they want to consume and purchase and chase and do those things doesn’t appear, on the surface, to have the same intensity.