Petty controversy: Michael Bloomberg enjoys beer... on the rocks

The petty controversy: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg offended his city's legions of beer drinkers this week by admitting he drinks his ale on the rocks. "I actually put ice in my beer," Bloomberg told a crowd of employees at the Brooklyn Brewery. "Yeah, I know. It's how I've always done it." Bartenders and beer drinkers across the city were left rather stunned by Bloomberg's admission.

The reaction: Adding ice represents a failure to "respect the efforts the brewers put into the beer," said Julie Johnson, editor of All About Beer magazine, as quoted by the New York Post. And there could be political repercussions. "Beergate" may well force Bloomberg to wave goodbye to his "barely-concealed presidential ambitions," says John Del Signore at Gothamist. "That kind of freaky, vaguely elitist predilection isn't going to cut it in Coors country." It is perhaps worth noting, says Sam Dolnick at The New York Times, that drinking ice with beer is completely "normal" in Thailand, if not in Manhattan.

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