Bars and Clubs - NYC Nightlife

[Hof]

Maybe this will become as popular as the pizza thread...

I love beer,mostly because it's all I can tolerate in mass quantities and still manouever in a somewhat human manner.Wine burns me with it's sharp acid-reflux afterlife and it quickly doubles my vision,and hard stuff makes me stupid then comatose in rapid succession.

Beer is my default and,due to real-life economic restrictions,must sometimes be purchased on the cheap.My favorite tavern,"BEER" has 7-8 brews on tap (more than half are the undrinkable "Lite" variety),each for $2.50/pint,(a tiny pint,a Pilsner glass)and one draught import--Heineken's--for 3 bucks.Anything else is Bud.Or Corona,which is an exotic drink in "BEER",like a Pina Colada would be at McDonald's.

I have begged them to bring in Stella Artois.After the bartender stops laughing,he'll explain how nobody among the Regulars would bother with it,and besides,he'd piss off his distributor by doing business with another distributor.Is the Mafia into beer?Again?

I run hefty tabs for my brew of choice--Beck's,in the bottle,which they stock just for me,I think--but on ocassion the $4.50/bottle that "BEER" greedily gets from me for a Beck's becomes more than my common sense can bear,and Bud becomes default.
Gak,what a difference.

My friends are mostly low-end beer consumers,having swill like Old Milwaukee or Miller Lite on hand,and if I bring along a 6 pack of Beck's when I visit,they always make jokes about my socio-economic status and my snooty taste in beer as they look out the window to see if I parked my new Bently on my diploma from the London School of Economics.How can I tell them I actively doubt their taste when I'm eating their free cheeseburgers?
So I drink Lite beer on ocassion.It's true.

[Ninjahedge]

Hof, try making your own.

If you have the room, it would probably be the best thing you could do. If your friends think that Becks is high brow, they are definitely not into beer at all. They are into getting drunk..

Microbrewing on your own takes a bit to get used to, but once you know how to do it, and you know what you like, you can change things slightly to cater to your taste, and all for MUCH cheaper than what you can get even Pabst for.

My only suggestion to you, if you are looking for something different, would be to start looking into the ales. Stay toward the lighter ales first. Pete's, Samuel Addams and Saranac have some good ales to try. There is also the good old British Budweiser (or so I have heard) called Bass.

They are all a little more bitter than a pislner (well, most of them are) but some are richer, some sweeter, some even lightly nutty. They go great with pizza, and even better with steak! Hell, salt and vinegar chips are a good stand-by if that is all you have around! (Actually, I love that combo...).

So don't worry about what your friends say about your beer. Get what you want to drink and leave it at that.

If you want to test your friends, take a look around the liquor stores for a stuff called "barleywine" ale. It is a style, so there are several people that make it. Some beers out there have a rather high alcohol %. Barleywine being the highest at about 10%-15%. To give you an idea of what that means, Bud is about 3.2%. IOW, the alcohol in one Brooklyn Breweries Monster Ale (11.2%) is the same as 3½ buds.

All the liquor stores in my area have caught onto this and have upped their prices almost in accordance with the AC%, but in FL, you may not have that problem. Just look for the content % on the bottle.

One warning though, these stronger beers are usually a little heavier or stronger than the others. As such, you may find one you LOVE, but you are equally as likely to find one you HATE. Look around, and ask us if you want to know a little about what these beers might taste like. We could, at least, tell you where to go if we do not know..

GL on your "beer expansion" mission!

[Hof]

...in a big blue garbage can in my laundry room.The beer announced it's desire to stop fermenting when the barrel blew off it's top,despite it's being dragooned by endless strips of duct tape.For awhile,until I had to wash it down,that space became my official fermentation room.
Despite the disaster,my homebrew actually had a pretty good taste,but it was mostly gross.

Whenever I travel,I seek out home town microbreweries.I've found some good brewhouses in Denver,Atlanta,Tampa,Charlotte,etc.(I live in The South).My own little adopted town has TWO microbreweries.
There's one,across from Union Station in DC,that was carved from an ornate old Post Office,and they have about a dozen good,fresh beers available.They make it in full view of the bar in huge copper casks that perch overhead in the vaulted ceilings,and the coils snake from above directly to the tap.I can't remember the name.Maybe Capitol Brew House...???DC Brewery...???Worth a visit if you're in DC.

I grew up with good beers around me.I'm 1/2 German,two generations away from using umlats,and I'm 1/2 Irish.Both families drank European beers;I remember a lot of Ales,but it was mostly Pilsner at our house.
An Uncle drank warm Guiness,which would induce vomiting if I ever dared sneak a drink when no one was looking.At a very young age,I remember going to Oktoberfechs and places called "Hofbrau Haus" or "Liederkranz Club" with the family,and St Pat's Day was always a holiday.

When I came of drinking age,I started with ales,bitter and dark.Rochester,where I spent my youth,had a good supply of local breweries,so I began my Life with Beer drinking Standard Dry Ale,a heavy,dark Germanish brew,which greatly pleased my Father.
I hung out at a place called California Brewhouse,which boasted the most eclectic selection of beers in Town,and I sampled their inventory from A to Z.
When I was broke,I'd buy a 99-cent 6-pack of Genesee--Rochester Water--or Schaefer's,the one beer to have when you're having more than one,which is ALWAYS the reason to buy a 6-pack...

I was fatally corrupted in college,when money was tight and beer came in kegs.Frat parties were ALWAYS Budweiser parties,so Bud,and later Coors (...I know...)became MY brand.
Only in my more mature and affluent years have I let go and adapted a particular import beer as my persona,and that is Beck's,and it arrived at after years of clueless experimentation.I've tried them all,but Beck's owns me.

I actually gained my fondness for the stuff over the bars of New York City.I was there on a visit in the late '90s and Beck's was everywhere and cheap,so I consumed a lot in the City and went home a different man.NY does that to me...Prior to my St Paul-like conversion,I had only sampled Beck's.After I left the City,I forsake Coors and continued to drink Beck's,right up to a couple minutes ago...

[sqwrell]

My question is if their is any live jazz aorund "8 E 69 street. Between Madison & 5th" -- because I will be in that area w/ a few free hours Friday night.

Whats the closet jazz club to that location???

thanks!

[kliq6]

Session 73 is great, 73 and first ave

[sqwrell]

Session 73 is great, 73 and first ave

thanks !!!!

[sqwrell]

Session 73 is great, 73 and first ave

Just researched this and it does not seem to be a jazz club - which is where I am better suited to hang out in

[Schadenfrau]

Session 73 is a jazz club, and those are few and far between on the Upper East Side. You'll probably have to travel to find exactly what you want.

[sqwrell]

Session 73 is a jazz club, and those are few and far between on the Upper East Side. You'll probably have to travel to find exactly what you want.

Thanks. From looking at the web site it seems to have hip hop and funk and little jazz http://www.session73.com/

http://www.iridiumjazzclub.com seems better and is only over 1 mile away.

Session 73 looks like a great place to eat anyway

many thanks for your time

[ablarc]

[Iridium] seems better and is only over 1 mile away.

You picked the right one, but don't forget to take along a little money.

[Schadenfrau]

Iridium is on the other side of the park, though.

[Ninjahedge]

[whispers]Go to the village[/whispers]

[milleniumcab]

iridium has moved to W 53rd and Broadway... used to be on W 63rd and Columbus...

[ablarc]

iridium has moved to W 53rd and Broadway... used to be on W 63rd and Columbus...

Did that a while back. 2001, I believe.

And I think it's 51st Street, isn't it?

[milleniumcab]

Yes ablarc, it has been a while since they moved and you are probably right, it might very well be 51st Street...