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Ice in Beer? Who Taught Bloomberg How to Do That Stuff?
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 15, 2011
Modified Feb 15, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 15, 2011
Modified Feb 15, 2011
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Since presidential elections are typically won by the candidate voters most want to get a beer with, it looks like Mayor Bloomberg may well have ruined his barely-concealed presidential ambitions with his confession that he takes his beer on the rocks. That kind of freaky, vaguely elitist predilection isn't going to cut it in Coors country. As we reported yesterday, after refusing to sample the new beer at the ribbon cutting for the Brooklyn Brewery's new expansion, the mayor explained that he typically "[has] to put ice in [his] beer." For insight into this sacrilege, we turned to two Brooklyn beer aficionados, Bill Mack of Luckydog and Dave Pollack at the Diamond. Mack tells us:
I had a laugh because, for someone like me, it's ridiculous. But I guess to each his own. I don't want anybody telling me what position I can have sex in. Not in Williamsburg! It's all personal taste. I wouldn't want to make fun of how he'd drink it. I don't like ice in beer for the same reason I don't use frozen mugs or ice chips. Sooner or later the beer is going to get watered down. I don't want water in my beer. It's not a kid's soft drink.
If you came into Luckydog and wanted a cask ale with ice in it... I don't know. If you order it, the bartender would do it. It's your beer and you can do what you want. I wouldn't throw them out. It's personal taste. And if this starts a new trend that's okay, because if you look at it from a bar owner's perspective, if people start ordering ice in beer, you're saving money. There's that old Irish bartender's adage: There's money in ice!
Mack says he's never seen anyone request ice in beer in his bar, and neither has Dave Pollack, who owns the excellent Diamond in Greenpoint. But like Mack, he stopped short of judging Bloomberg for his perverse beer consumption. "I just think it's kind of funny," says Pollack. "It probably would have been a good idea for him to just drink it. How horrible could it have been without ice? But I kind of like it. If that's what he wants to do and he's got the balls to say it, good for him. I just wonder where he got this."
Exactly, where the hell did the mayor get this? The mayor's press team has so far refused to comment on Beergate, but we'll update if we hear back on this vital issue. Until then we'll just assume it's a rich people thing that we're far too vulgar to understand.
Tagged
beer
beer on rocks
brooklyn brewery
ice beer
mayor bloomberg
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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