For an evening, Garth's dining room was our Doom Saloon as we had our monthly Stout Appreciation Night (SAN) We all shared a toast to Dave, somehow Shoot Out the Sun seemed oddly appropriate I will miss his posts. RIP Dave.
I only “knew” him through his BA posts but it sounds like he’s the guy I thought he would be if I knew CaveDave the person.
We should all aim to be as highly regarded as Dave. >7 pages of admirable comments about a man that many of us only knew through his postings here. Cracking open a nice stout now in his honor. Cheers, Dave!
Like so many others, I never knew Dave personally, but only through posts here. Another one gone too soon, and so much of his knowledge unpassed. May his memory be a blessing. In memoriam, I'm raising one of my own personal OG stouts, Ipswich Ale's Oatmeal Stout. I go back with this one longer than I care to admit (probably 30 years) It's still one of my absolute standards for the style, and when I homebrew my own oatmeal stout, it's one of the few I rate and compare against.
Heard this through the grapevine last week. Sucked to hear. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Dave in person, but in large part thanks to him, I did meet many other Beer Advocates over the years. Many of which I stay in touch with. He was a champion to the culture and especially New Beer Sunday, which opened many of us up to not only new brews, but people, beverages, stories, foods, music, and customs from all over the country. And other countries for that matter. Cheers to a legend. And in the words of The Grateful Dead… Fare-thee-well now Let your life proceed by its own design Nothing to tell now Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine
Heady was monumental in our lives! Man, he had stories from back in the days of the original Alchemist !
I’ll also miss Cavedave when that inevitable main political discussion that always divides the forum breaks out where he was a valuable and knowledgeable ally to the cause- glass over aluminum.
Ichabod on your profile avatar is a trip. You a rail guy? Pretty sure Dave would of loved that abd the stories if true.
So, getting ready to crack a new beer for Sunday, reading through all these posts... Loving all the memories, stories, snippets, tidbits, and tributes. So, as per my name and avatar, I'm the proprietor of the Doom Saloon. (@cavedave Cave Dave actually gave me a "deed"-- an old parchment document that he'd doctored-- officially proclaiming me the 'proprietor.') I am so fortunate to have been good friends with him for 15 years. Shortly after the birth of my son, I wandered into my local homebrew shop just as the owner and a patron were planning to start a homebrew club. Met Cave Dave that first meeting. The rest is a glorious history of beer, cigars, brewing, travel, beer, food, music, mushrooms, beer, literature, poetry, puns, walking, talking--hockey talk (Isles vs Rangers), family talk, life talk, beer talk-- beer, VT, and, of course, time at the Doom Saloon--quick visits to share a beer and enjoy a cigar, themed gatherings to share and imbibe sours, barleywines, or IPAs, and then, the big one... our annual, legendary STOUT NITE! He co-hosted the first few. I had the space; he had the beer, and much of the crew. At that first event, I was introduced to @WillieThreebiers and a couple other BAs who would become regular attendees at all events- members of the Doom Saloon Doom Crew. *Please reply here if you were also one of the attendees at Stout Nite or another event! (I remember random people --someone from Buffalo area, some NY/NJ folks. It'd be great to hear from you!)* Anyway, someone else in this thread had asked about some of his favorite beers. Well, there's so much to say on this topic, but, a few that come to mind: Of the Alchemist, he was partial to Focal. But he also was there in the beginning and told of all the many styles Kimmich brewed! I recall fondly sharing a Hell or High Water with him. Rushing Duck, like Been to Barbados. Le Blue and other anniversary/special -release beers from Ithaca. (We had an epic road trip up for the Le Blue release. I was a total noob.) And Stout!? Hmmm... a few that i vividly remember enjoying with him: Abyss, MOAS, Hunnapah(sp?) and this... from a recent exchange we had on messenger that I wanted to share with you all. Before the most recent Stout Nite I had reached out seeking his wisdom and guidance on a couple things. In part, this is his response: "I was a basket case before stout night 1 especially as there was no history of how to do it and what worked, and some of the people didn't know each other, and a couple I'd never met in person. It was a bit weird until the magic of stout brought us all together like it always does. And there was a good deal of smoking weed too, though I don't think we did cigars. And there was no poem or doom metal, but there was Grateful Dead and Who, and the highlight of the night was BCBS Rare, the original release, to this day the best stout I ever tasted." I thought this was amazing. Of the hundreds, thousands, of Stouts he had sampled...!!! I was not at that 1st one. Who amongst us was at that very first stout night? What do you remember?? Itd be great to hear about it....
Huh. So in addition to the cryptic can stamp on bottom of the TH Ryelark i posted in N (" , my fb memories just shared this, from 11 years ago. Cave Dave, another friend, and I watched the Super Bowl (Seahawks vs Patriots) here and this is one he brought for us to share....
Closing out the weekend with one last one to toast our friend. Thank you for all the positive interactions you gave us all, we will miss you; this stout is for you.
Well it sure was nice to hear from so many fine BA's this weekend. Sad to bid farewell to Dave, but just look at the company that assembled to send the Renaissance Man off.
