Drinkin' USA

I'd like to share some personal memories with you. Memories of the time I've spent boozing in the USA. That's right. I've run out of things to whinge about. I've only memories left. And precious few of those after all those years of boozing.


The first time - New York

I arrived in the USa for the first time in October 1985. I landed at Newark airport in the early evening. A woman from the agency that had recruited me drove me to my hotel on Manhattan, the Barbizon. My bags safely stowed in my room, I asked the bellboy where there was a bar nearby. He pointed me down the avenue on which the hotel stood. (Can't remember which one, but i guess I could look it up).

There I was. On Manhattan for barely an hour an already sat in a pub. Not bad going. The pub wasn't great. Modern and shiny, glowing with neon signs for crap beers. I ordered an Amstel Light. At the time I didn't know any better. It wasn't great either. But the world always seems a better place half way down your first beer. My world does, at any rate.

This was my introduction to drinking in the USA. It was less different than I had imagined. No gunfights, no stabbings. Surprisingly civilised, in fact, compared to London. I'd witnessed a couple of scary pub fights in the months before leaving. A particulalry nasty glassing incident in Camden really shook me. It struck me just how dangerous pubs could be.

A week later and I'd rented an apartment on Staten Island. On Stobe Avenue to be precise. I had a purpose built studio flat in the ground floor of a (virtually) brand new semi. The whole are had just been developed, and there was still the odd patch of marshy scrubland awaiting the bulldozers. I rented the house from a working-class family that, like many others, had moved over the Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn. They lived in the house above me.

There was something I soon noticed about the area. It was 100% white, except for the Koreans who ran the convenience store. This was very different to where I'd lived in London. Thornton Heath was pretty mixed, with a sizeable black and Asian population. Come to think of it, I don't think anywhere in London is all white, not even the really posh bits. Maybe some of the dodgy council estates on the Essex border, but they aren't somewhere you'd want to live out of choice. Well I wouldn't.

Talking of the Korean convenience shop, that's where I'd buy beer. Ballantine's Ale was about the best they had. I'd heard of Ballantine's. The Ale was a shadow of its former self, but still better than drinking lager. I used to call in on my walk back from the train station. Though I still found drinking beer at home slightly strange.

There were a few bars within walking distance. Of these, I preferred the Recovery Room. It was the longest walk, but I liked it best. It looked just like the bars you see in American films. You know, the ones with flickering neon signs and rednecks playing pool. Except that there were neither rednecks nor pool table. It wasn't really rough at all. Quite the opposite.

The Recovery Room's beer selection was slightly better than the other local bars. They had bottled Heineken in addition to the ubiquitous Bud, Bud Light and Michelob. Still not my first choice, Heineken, but sooo much better than Bud. I hadn't expected Bud to be much cop. But it was far, far worse than just bad. It was positively nasty. Even ice-cold, the horrible chemical taste was still detectable. The only way I could drink it was to try to get it from glass to stomach as quickly as possible, reducing the time I could taste it to the absolute minimum. I'm not joking. I really did find it that unpleasant.

I'd only ever drunk Heineken on draught before. In Amsterdam, when I'd been there on holiday. I hadn't been overly impressed. But that was before I'd tried Bud. Drinking it didn't give me any positive pleasure, but that easily trumped the negative pleasure of drinking Bud.

Another thing the Recovery Room had going for it was the dartboard. We'd played darts a lot at lunchtime when I worked in the centre of London. It was nice to be able to keep it up. One of my English colleagues was a pretty good darts player and we used to take on the locals. See, it couldn't have been rough or I would have been long dead. The jukebox, I could have lived without. I hope I never have to listen to "We built this city on rock and roll" again. Though whenever I do hear it, I always think of the Recovery Room . . .

I was working for the Bank of New York. My office was in downtown Manhattan on Franklin Street. We were on the 19th floor and had a pretty good view of the new development that was being built next to the World Trade Center. I commuted by train and ferry. Arriving by boat was fun and there was a great view of the city as you came in. From the ferry terminal it was just a short walk to the office.

There was much less drinking at dinnertime than I'd been used to in London. There we'd be down the pub 2 or 3 times a week at lunchtime and 2 or 3 times after work. That's what you do in London. Sometimes you need a few pints to be able to face the nightmare journey home.

I occasionally went to one of the downtown pubs for a couple of beers after work. They were full of men suits. People just like me and my colleagues. As in the City of London, these bars closed at nine or ten and didn't open at the weekend. Bass was my tipple here. It wasn't the Draught Bass I sometimes drank in London, but some blanded-out keg version. Still a lot better than Bud. Then again, what isn't?

Even at this early period of my life, I already did some research before travelling abroad. In those days, that mostly meant looking in Michael Jackson's "World Guide to Beer". I had a couple of adresses to check out. First was McSorley's Old Ale House (15 E 17th Street), supposedly New York's oldest pub. It was genuine enough looking inside and had a certain charm, but queueing to get into a pub was a new concept for me. Never had to wait for someone to leave in order to be able to enter before. They had a house pale and dark lager. They sounded more interesting than they were: bland and overprocessed.

McSorley's was in the East Village (I guess it still is). One of my favourite bits of New York. On First Avenue was a string of Ukrainian restaurants, further east Avenue A was full of Indian restaurants. But this about beer, not food (though if I remember correctly, the Ukrainian places did sell Czech beer). One street along from McSorley's on, I believe, St. Mark's Place, was another pub I frequented. Down in a basement. I'm afraid I can't remember its name. here they had Prior Double Dark on draught, supposedly based on a Czech dark lager. It wasn't bad, really. The best American-brewed beer that I'd tried so far. Not exactly a world-beater, but pleasant enough to drink.

This pub whose name I've forgotten also had a dartboard. Here it came in really handy having a darts-talented colleague. One evening we won pitcher after pitcher of Prior. We still hadn't finished them all when the bar closed at 3 AM. It was so late, it wasn't worth all the trouble of getting back to Staten. We had a couple of coffees, followed by a cooked breakfast and went staight into work. It wasn't my most productive day ever.

Another place I knew about before I arrived in the USA was the Peculier Pub (145 Bleecker St.). I recall this being somewhere inbetween the East Village and Greenwich Village. As a specialist beer pub, it was a real rarity in those days. It wasn't very big and it could be a pig to find a seat. Even worse, it only had a single toilet. Taking a wedge could be very time-consuming, waiting for the bog to be free. The selection was mostly Belgian, but ask me for any specific examples. Too much beer in the intervening years has fuddled my memories.

In the mid-1980'S the micro movement was, unbeknown to me, starting to take off in the West. Washington, Oregon, Colorado, California. But it had had almost no impact on New York. Win one exception: Manhattan Brewing. It was New York's only brewpub, housed in a former electricity substation close to Canal Street. In walking distance of my office.

I think it was me who persuaded my English colleagues to start going there once a week after work. It was a pretty big place with the brewing equipment at one end behind glass. I'd discovered heaven, or at least its nearest earthly likeness. Handpulled British-style beer. This is what I'd been missing. I used to drink their Stout. Pint after pint. For the first time I'd found an American beer that I didn't drink just for lack of anything better, but out of choice. Easily as good as what you found in Britain. Better, and more to my taste, than most of the beer in London.

It became a home from home. Proper beer and fish and chips (with vinegar). What else does an Englishman yearn for? I don't think they had mushy peas, but nowhere's perfect. We played darts here, too. Lots of darts. I need a few pints to be able to play my best. Beer relieves tension and relaxes. You just have to be wary of getting over-relaxed. That happened to me more than once. Then the darts acquire a will of their own. Best stand behind me.

One evening we got talking with a dapper young chap who told us he was the brewer. He didn't look like any brewer I'd ever seen. What did I care? He brewed great beer. We had quite a chat. It was soon apparent that he really knew his stuff, which shouldn't have been surprising, given the quality of the beer. I think he might still be in the brewing industry.

Manhattan Brewing is the only place I've poured a drink over someone. Deliberately. I've spilled my drink on someone accidentally lots of times. This was premeditated. But it wasn't a beer, so it doesn't rightly belong amongst these recollections.

Manhattan Brewing might well have been the only brewery of any kind in New York City. The industrial breweries were long gone. I think the one in Staten was the last to close. There was an outfit called New Amsterdam that marketed a bland beer that pretended to be special, but that I'm pretty sure was contract-brewed.

My American visa, a J1, was only valid for a maximum of 18 months. I had a simple choice: apply for a green card and have to remain in the US for two or three years while it was processed; work illegally (remarkably simple, but risky); or leave. I chose the latter. In April 1987 I boarded the plane to London, not knowing if I would ever return to America.