David Farnworth of Lucky Baldwins Passes

From TheFullPint.com comes news that Dave of Lucky Baldwins passed away today.

While he'd been sick for the past year, this is still hard news. I'm just glad that he beat the odds and opened his third and final pub before things had progressed too far.

If you're relatively new to the beer scene in LA, you might not realize just what Dave meant to good beer drinkers here. Before 2006 if you wanted to get a great beer, an adventurous beer and have a chance at something you'd never tried before you basically had three choices: Sam and Marlene's Stuffed Sandwich, Sang Yoon's (and pre-Sang) Fathers Office and Lucky Baldwins. Every other place was a crap shoot.

Dave and Sam seemed to be forever in a friendly competition to see who could dig up the most interesting things. Rumors abounded of secret caches of kegs and bottles stashed all over the San Gabriel Valley. Treasures just waiting for the right time and place to blow our minds.

Fortunately, we all benefited from Dave's passion. The idea that a crazy, cranky kind Mancunian Brit took a falling apart pub in Old Town Pasadena and turned it into a mini empire is unbelievable and yet that's what he and his partner Peggy did.

I believe the turning point came when Dave applied his knowledge and love of Belgian beer to the Pub. In a short time the Lucky's annual Belgian Beer Festival became a must stop time at the bar. Ancient kegs of Rodenbach Grand Cru would appear pouring forth liquid gold amongst others. Dave had so many connections over in Belgium and spent so much time promoting the beer that he eventually was knighted by the brewer's guild.

I could keep going on, but seriously, LA lost one of our important irascible beer cornerstones.

Go raise a pint for Dave at one of the 3 Lucky's locations. http://www.luckybaldwins.com/