"Show some damn respect, Bloomberg," Gawker wrote.
"He's ruining his beer," blogged Brew York, New York.
On Twitter, some wondered if putting ice in beer was grounds for impeachment.
I asked my Facebook friends about it, and most agreed with the guy who said, "Curse the thought."
So, what's so wrong about pouring beer over ice?
1. It's just wrong.
To which I reply, "So what?"
How many times have you lifted a glass to those rule-breaking, rebellious sorts?
If beer-drinkers followed the rules, there'd be no such thing as the double IPA, the smoked porter, barrel-aged stout, fruit beer, American wheat beer or about 100 other styles of beer.
Instead, we'd all still be drinking Budweiser, which - I kid you not - ran a national advertising campaign in 1965 that said its brewmaster might cry if he saw anyone pour his beer over ice. As if a couple of cubes would somehow ruin that fizzy industrial rice lager.
2. It makes the beer too cold.
It's true, the spicy yeast of a Belgian ale or the hoppy bite of an India pale ale tends to disappear below 45 degrees.
But most American beer is meant to be served at less than 40 degrees. Heck, some bars chill those Bud aluminum bottles to 22 degrees!
In hotter climes, notably Thailand and Vietnam, beer is almost always served over ice. In Mexico, it's not uncommon to enjoy a Michelada, which is a pale lager like Pacifico mixed with tomato juice, lime and spices over a salt-rimmed glass full of ice.
3. It changes the taste of beer.
The ice can't help but melt, which waters down the flavor of your favorite.
But beer gets watered down all the time - and I'm not just talking about light beer. In most brews, the initial beer wort is diluted with additional water to adjust the density and flavor of the finished product.
Adding a little more water doesn't necessarily ruin the beer - it just changes it. Could it actually improve the flavor? You won't know till you try.
