The Lost Abbey Brewing plans to leave its current production headquarters and tasting room at 1347 Keystone Way in Vista by the end of 2026, as co-founder and acclaimed brewer Tomme Arthur continues a years-long effort to shrink the company's physical footprint and align its overhead with the amount of beer it actually produces. Arthur has reached an agreement to exit the facility and is now searching for a smaller North County brewery that can become The Lost Abbey's production home beginning in 2027.
The move represents the latest chapter in a strategy Arthur calls "growing down," an idea he began discussing publicly in 2022 as the economics of craft brewing changed dramatically following years of expansion. Rather than continuing to operate a brewery designed around anticipated growth, Arthur argued that The Lost Abbey needed to become comfortable being smaller today while preserving the ability to grow again if demand warranted it.
That philosophy led to a major restructuring beginning in 2023, when The Lost Abbey announced it would leave the large San Marcos production facility that had been its home for more than 16 years. Arthur said at the time that the company was attempting to create a more sustainable operation amid rising costs and a changing craft-beer market.
The Lost Abbey subsequently moved brewing operations into Mother Earth Brew Co.'s Vista facility, sharing space and using its 20-barrel brewing system. The arrangement gave Arthur a smaller operation than the sprawling San Marcos brewery, but the facility ultimately proved less than ideal for The Lost Abbey's particular production needs.
In late 2024, The Lost Abbey moved again, this time taking space inside the former Eppig Brewing production facility on Keystone Way in Vista. The approximately 16,000-square-foot brewery was equipped with a 30-barrel brewhouse and substantial cellar capacity and was being operated alongside House of Mason, the company then associated with the facility.
That arrangement changed dramatically in 2025. House of Mason shifted toward contract brewing and exited the Vista facility, leaving The Lost Abbey as the primary operator of a brewery capable of producing roughly 10,000 barrels annually — about five times the approximately 2,000 barrels Arthur says he actually wants The Lost Abbey to produce each year.
The result was an ironic return to essentially the same problem Arthur had been trying to solve by "growing down": too much brewery.
"For much of 2026, we have been contract brewing for other partners and trying to fill the void with beer," Arthur told San Diego Beer News. "While tanks got filled, that didn't really do much to assist our bottom line."
Arthur said the economics of occupying such a large facility ultimately became impossible to justify for the brewery he is trying to build. Although contract production helped make use of the equipment, it did not solve the underlying problem of carrying overhead designed for significantly more beer than The Lost Abbey itself intends to produce.
"Rent for the space was too prohibitive and occupancy far higher than normal," Arthur told the publication. "In short, we were back to a building — like our original home in San Marcos — that cost too much. Something had to change."
The Lost Abbey will continue brewing at Keystone Way during the coming months while Arthur searches for its next production facility. No replacement has yet been selected, and Arthur is inviting owners or operators with potentially suitable North County brewery space to contact the company.
Arthur also disclosed the plans in part because word of the impending Vista departure had apparently fueled speculation that The Lost Abbey itself could be closing. He says that isn't the plan.
"We're focused on finally getting down to the right size," Arthur said. "When we move our brewing base of operations, it will not mean less Lost Abbey beer. In fact, the goal is to continue producing about 2,000 barrels of beer per year and define a new home for 2027 and beyond."
The impending move is significant given The Lost Abbey's place in San Diego's craft-beer history. Arthur helped launch the Belgian-inspired brand in 2006 alongside Port Brewing, developing an international reputation for barrel-aged, sour and Belgian-style beers including Duck Duck Gooze, Carnevale and Devotion, while Arthur himself received the Brewers Association's Russell Scherer Award for Innovation in Craft Brewing.
The brewery's contraction also reflects challenges that extend far beyond a single San Diego beer company. When Arthur first publicly explained his "growing down" strategy, he pointed to rising rents, raw-material and logistics costs, labor expenses, distributor consolidation and changing consumer tastes as forces that had made the traditional craft-brewery model increasingly difficult.
Arthur's response has effectively been the opposite of the growth-at-all-costs strategy that characterized much of the American craft-beer boom. His stated objective is to determine the amount of beer The Lost Abbey can sustainably sell, then operate a brewery sized around that reality rather than paying for production capacity in hopes that demand eventually catches up.
The Vista departure will also eventually mean the end of The Lost Abbey's current headquarters tasting room. The brewery's website still lists the Keystone Way location as operating, but Arthur said plans for winding down the taproom will be announced once the landlord agreement is finalized.
Arthur expects the closure process to include a warehouse sale offering beer and other inventory that cannot reasonably be transferred to the company's next home. There could also be a much larger liquidation of brewing equipment depending on what happens to the facility after The Lost Abbey departs.
When House of Mason exited the property, Arthur was forced to purchase the brewery and cellar equipment that remained inside. If the landlord cannot secure another brewery tenant interested in using the existing system, Arthur said that equipment could ultimately be sold at auction, something he hopes can be avoided given the quality and configuration of the production facility.
The headquarters move does not mean The Lost Abbey is disappearing from San Diego County. Its current website lists five locations, including the Vista brewery and four satellite tasting rooms: The Church in downtown San Diego's East Village, The Confessional in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, The Sanctuary in San Elijo Hills and The Monastery in Miramar.
Some of those outposts have become destinations in their own right. The Confessional has operated in Cardiff since 2015, while The Sanctuary opened in San Elijo Hills in 2019, and The Church transformed a historic East Village church into one of San Diego's more distinctive craft-beer tasting rooms.
The brewery's current predicament therefore isn't necessarily about finding more customers or producing more beer. It's about finding a building appropriately sized for the company The Lost Abbey has deliberately chosen to become.
"All of these steps are calculated to preserve our work and emerge on the other side in a better place," Arthur told San Diego Beer News. "That has been the goal since we left San Marcos and we have not been shy about getting there."
For Arthur, that means accepting an uncomfortable reality facing breweries throughout the region: a production facility that once represented room for future growth can become a financial liability when the market changes. His strategy is increasingly centered on matching rent, equipment and production capacity to the business The Lost Abbey actually has rather than the larger brewery it once envisioned.
"The brewing business isn't getting any easier and difficult decisions have to be made," Arthur said. "Ultimately, paying the right amount of rent each month based on the size of the business is a model we must embrace."
The Lost Abbey expects to remain at its Vista headquarters through the end of the year while continuing its search for a new North County home. Wherever it lands, Arthur's target remains roughly 2,000 barrels annually - another deliberate step in a counterintuitive strategy built not around becoming San Diego's biggest brewery, but around ensuring one of its most enduring names remains viable.
For more information about The Lost Abbey, visit lostabbeybrewing.com.
Originally published on September 23, 2026. Information first reported by San Diego Beer News.
Originally published on September 23, 2026. Information first reported by San Diego Beer News.
