Ice Cold Beer

It's -12 degrees out and I'm starting to wonder why Americans don't drink warm beer the way the English do. I'm not the biggest fan of warm beer but a couple of cold, windswept months working in a coffin-dodger holiday camp on the Isle of Wight and it made a lot more sense to me. Old Speckled Hen was not just a name I gave to customers at the camp anymore.

Now I am in New York and I can walk into a bar from 12 below with an icicle hanging off my nose and bright pink ears only to be handed a glass that has been refrigerated in ice then filled with cold beer. This is why I only drink Guiness in the winter months, if they ever introduce "Ice-Cold Guinness" in the USA I think I'd become convinced Ernest Saunders was back in charge! How come he isn't in The Guinness Book of Records as the only person ever to recover from Alzheimer's disease? I mean Guinness know him after all....

Anyway I digress, it's fucking cold and the icebergs are starting to float down the Hudson River into the harbor, this is always one of my favorite sights. Last year was the coldest winter since I moved to New York 6 years ago (10th coldest on record) and it was really cool to be on the Staten Island Ferry watching it creak through the ice. It was also sad last year though as on January 10th the actor/writer Spalding Gray committed suicide by jumping in the water. They didn't find him until March. I think somewhere in the ice I was looking for him.