{"id":11154,"date":"2015-06-30T07:56:04","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T14:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=11154"},"modified":"2015-06-30T07:57:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T14:57:05","slug":"rip-current-what-would-dave-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2015\/06\/30\/rip-current-what-would-dave-drink\/","title":{"rendered":"Rip Current honors influential homebrewer with What Would Dave Drink?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rip<\/a>
Rip Current’s What Would Dave Drink? Belgian-style dark strong ale honors QUAFF homebrewer Dave Levonian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It happened in a most apt environment, a beer festival teeming with recreational fermentationists the day before the start of the American Homebrewers Association<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s National Homebrewers Conference<\/strong><\/a> (NHC). It was there, on Broadway Pier, that I bumped into Rip Current Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a> co-owner and brewmaster Paul Sangster<\/strong>, who escorted me back to his San Marcos-based brewery\u2019s table to sample a beer very close to his heart. Dubbed What Would Dave Drink?<\/strong>, it was a Belgian-style strong ale referencing QUAFF<\/strong><\/a> (Quality Ale and Fermentation Fraterninty) legend Dave Levonian<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Dave\u2019s last name may sound familiar to those in the local beer know as both Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits<\/a> <\/strong>and The Lost Abbey<\/strong><\/a> brewed farmhouse ales called Brother Levonian Saison to honor the homebrewer, who sadly lost his battle with cancer back in 2008. Gone but far from forgotten, Dave\u2019s legacy and spirit for crafting quality beer in domestic environs lives on in the many he touched, including Sangster, who offers up the following explanation of this very special beer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AHA approached Rip Current and a few other reputable San Diego County breweries to brew commemorative beers for the NHC.\u00a0They asked for 1,000 bombers to give to attendees. Having won the Ninkasi Award when the NHC was held in San Diego in 2011, I was happy to participate, but there was one sticking point\u2014we don\u2019t bottle our beer at Rip Current. So we had to get creative. I asked QUAFF if we could do a collaboration where the homebrew club would provide the recipe and manpower to help with bottling, and they agreed.<\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a>
Dave Levonian’s sister, Andra Fromme holding a bottle of her brother’s tribute beer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cA few of QUAFF’s leaders got together and decided to make a beer straight out of Dave’s recipe book.\u00a0Since Brother Levonian was a saison, we wanted to do something different. Dave was particularly well known for his expertise with Belgian and English beer styles, and we found his recipe for a Belgian-style dark strong ale we thought would be great to make in his memory. We brewed the beer based closely on Dave\u2019s recipe but with a couple of modernizations. As planned, Dave\u2019s sister, Andra Levonian Fromme<\/strong>, and members of QUAFF attended the brew day to mill the grains, ceremoniously add in hops and drink several bottles of Dave\u2019s homebrew that his friends had cellared. Three weeks later, we set up bottling stations and hand-filled all 1,000 22-ounce bottles with the help of a bunch of QUAFFers using eight homebrew-style, single-shot bottle fillers (i.e., beer guns). It was an incredibly fun day.<\/p>\n

\u201cDave was known as both a beer expert and a foodie. Because of this, friends would often ask him for food and beer suggestions.\u00a0This prompted the posthumous creation of a t-shirt that read: What Would Dave Order?\u00a0And that\u2019s where the name for this beer came from. Also popular was a shirt mimicking the logo aesthetic of Duvel, but altered to read \u201cDavel,\u201d referencing the name of a Belgian-style golden strong ale he created using notes from a conversation he had with Duvel\u2019s brewmaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Would Dave Drink? is 9.8% alcohol-by-volume and recently went into distribution.\u00a0During NHC, we gave out the bottles and poured the beer at associated conference events. All the feedback has been amazing so far, so we\u2019re pleased to share the remaining barrels with San Diego accounts and visitors to our tasting rooms. But more than anything, we\u2019re excited to hear friends of Dave\u2019s who\u2019ve tasted this beer say it\u2019s very similar to what he brewed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It happened in a most apt environment, a beer festival teeming with recreational fermentationists the day before the start of the American Homebrewers Association\u2019s National Homebrewers Conference (NHC). It was there, on Broadway Pier, that I bumped into Rip Current Brewing Company co-owner and brewmaster Paul Sangster, who escorted me back to his San Marcos-based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,287,1],"tags":[1353,1171,1642,52,376,47,390,391,1641,1645,1098,1643,1449,432,308,309,46,1439,131,1644],"class_list":{"0":"post-11154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-beer-news","7":"category-homebrewing","8":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","9":"tag-sdbeer","10":"tag-aha","11":"tag-andra-fromme","12":"tag-ballast-point","13":"tag-beer","14":"tag-belgian","15":"tag-craft-beer","16":"tag-craftbeer","17":"tag-dave-levonian","18":"tag-duvel","19":"tag-homebrew","20":"tag-homebrewrs","21":"tag-lost-abbey","22":"tag-nhc","23":"tag-paul-sangster","24":"tag-quaff","25":"tag-saison","26":"tag-san-diego","27":"tag-san-marcos","28":"tag-what-would-dave-drink","29":"entry","30":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-2TU","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}