For Beer Tastes, on Beer Budgets (NYTimes)
Great article in the NY Times today By SETH KUGEL – Read away you beer snobs!
VISITING the big city can leave you parched, especially in summer. It’s easy to develop a more-than-one-beer thirst as you gamely tramp from museum to museum, from landmark to landmark.
But hunting cheap beer on the New York City bar scene is a bit like trying to find a cheetah on the African savanna. Sure, $7 pints dot the landscape like plump antelope, but the rare sub-$3 brew lurks in the underbrush like the fleetest footed of the big cats, hard to bring down without the help of a skilled guide savvy in sniffing out tell-tale footprints or happy-hour specials.
But unlike cheetahs, cheap beer won’t dash off at 70 miles an hour when you find it. For example, you have two hours to enjoy 50-cent Bud and Bud Light drafts at Bourbon Street on the Upper West Side on Fridays from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Bourbon Street is hardly genteel: bras hang from above the bar and snapshots of women who had apparently until recently been wearing those bras are posted on the wall, a nod to the Girls Gone Wild traditions of the real Bourbon Street. Hey, at two 10-ounce brews for a buck, beggars can’t be choosers. (Apparently, a significant number of beggars do like this kind of thing. The place gets crowded, but not so much so that it’s hard to place your order.)
The fratty Upper West Side bar scene is not for everyone, and although a dive bar is a dive bar, at least the surroundings in the East Village are more eclectic. Maybe the best deal � with no happy hour restrictions � is the $7 pitcher of McSorley’s at Cheap Shots, a narrow, raucous bar on First Avenue. Unlike most of what you’ll find at less than $2 a pint, the amber brew, with origins at its namesake pub a few blocks away, is never compared to bodily fluids.
At McSorley’s itself, a mug of about 8.5 ounces goes for $2.25 and is also available in a darker version. That’s a decent price, especially considering the old-school saloon atmosphere that includes sawdust on the floor.
Anyone planning to assault the overpriced, overhyped meatpacking district later in the evening might consider fueling up at McKenna’s a few blocks east of there with a few cheap ones. P.B.R. goes for $2 a can, even as its price elsewhere in Manhattan seems to be edging toward $3. Knowing what P.B.R. stands for, by the way, is a prerequisite for all drinkers of cheap beer; if you’re baffled, please do a Google search before continuing. (Hint: It’s not Professional Bull Riders or Petr�leo Brasileiro, which also pop up.)
Near the South Street Seaport, the $5.75 quarts of Bud Light or Coors Light at Jeremy’s Ale House are a surprising value for a tourist spot. A quart, for the lactose-intolerant or metric-loving among you, is 32 ounces, equivalent to two pints or nearly three cans of beer. As at McSorley’s, you have to tolerate a beer stench. When the brew is this cheap, spilling a bit doesn’t bother anybody, and the bar’s slim profit margin doesn’t leave a big budget for mops.
Most of these spots are bargain islands in a sea of exorbitant brews. But the capital of cheap beer in New York City is the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a one-stop hop on the L train from Manhattan. You almost don’t need guidance, as the bustling blocks around the Bedford Avenue station are crowded with bars where both prices and atmosphere are surprisingly pleasant.
Even so, a couple of deals stand out: From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., seven nights a week, Levee offers dollar cans of Carling Black Label, the result of its dollar-off-all-drinks happy hour. Black Label distinguishes itself from P.B.R. and other bottom-of-the-barrel brands by actually having some taste. But if it’s not enough for you, the dollar-off deal knocks down already reasonable prices on pints of Brooklyn Pennant Ale (to $3) and Yuengling ($2).
And making Jeremy’s Ale House seem both pricey and smelly by comparison is the Greenpoint Tavern, a beer joint from Williamsburg’s working-class days that has made a seemingly happy transition to modern life while keeping a handful of its blue-collar clientele � apparently they all find common ground in their love of hanging pots with plastic flowers. The standard, always-available bargain is a quart of Bud or Bud Light for $3.50 and, in a nod to people who think they’re being chic, quarts of Becks for $4.50.
But cheap beer in Brooklyn is more than Williamsburg. The call-a-spade-a-spade experts at Floyd N.Y. on Atlantic Avenue in Cobble Hill have comfy seats with a view of the boccie court, the perfect place to enjoy a �Crap-o-copia,� a bucket of ice jammed with six cans of whatever the beer-loving cat dragged in for $12. On a recent visit, that included American classics like Stroh’s, Schmidt’s, Genesee Cream Ale and Miller High Life. It’s easy walking distance from the downtown Brooklyn subway stops and is even on the route of the Brooklyn Loop of the Gray Line sightseeing bus.
Oh, and take this, Africa: We have cheetahs, too, and they’re easy to spot � in the Bronx Zoo.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Bourbon Street, 407 Amsterdam Avenue, between 79th and 80th Streets, (212) 721-1332.
Cheap Shots, 140 First Avenue, between Ninth Street and St. Marks Place, (212) 254-6631.
Jeremy’s Ale House, 228 Front Street, between Beekman Street and Peck Slip, (212) 964-3537.
McSorley’s Old Ale House, 15 East Seventh Street, between Second and Third Avenues, (212) 473-9148.
McKenna’s Pub, 245 West 14th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, (212) 620-8124.
Levee, 212 Berry Street, at North Third Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 218-8787.
Greenpoint Tavern, 188 Bedford Avenue, between North Sixth and North Seventh Streets, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 384-9539.
Floyd N.Y., 131 Atlantic Avenue, between Henry and Clinton Streets, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, (718) 858-5810.