I’m not talking about a Budweiser to slake my thirst during the World Series – this was about Bud’s sister company Stella Artois, which was holding its own “World Series” to find the World Draught Master: the barman or woman who can pour the best glass of Stella on the planet.
The beer from sleepy Leuven in Belgium was getting a huge push in the city that never sleeps.
We stayed at the trendy Hudson Hotel on West 58th Street, which, in keeping with the Stella adage, was “reassuringly expensive” (£5.20 a litre of water in your room!). New York remains the most exciting city on earth, its attractions brilliantly encapsulated in Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ inspiring video for their hit single Empire State Of Mind.
The ferry ride around the Statue of Liberty is a thought-provoking, experience, Times Square a 24-hour buzz and Greenwich Village retains a gentler, bohemian charm.
Even anti-terror security checks at landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty ferry ride are understandable rather than annoying.
Our wonderful guides Trudy and Becky regaled us with New York stories during the coach ride as we headed to Bar BXL on East 51st Street for a taster of what the main event held in store the following night. Here was an authentic Belgian bistro in the middle of New York and we met Marc Stroobandt, the Belgian Master Beer Sommelier for Stella Artois, who showed us what the contestants would face.
He explained the experience would be totally unlike beer experiences in Britain and went through the nine-step process the contestants would have to follow, explaining what needed to be done before presenting me with the best Stella I’d ever tasted. It was clear, clean, fresh-tasting with two fingers of froth.
Then Marc asked for a volunteer to try pouring the beer. Somehow I felt myself being manoeuvred behind the bar. The process was altogether more complicated than down at the King’s Arms. First there was the three-step cleaning of the glasses and checking for residual suds. Then the beer tap had to be opened so some gushed away (seemed a waste), the glass placed under it at precisely 45 degrees. Once two glasses were full full, their heads were “cut” with a knife at 45 degrees – then 75% of the full glasses had to be dipped into the cold water again. A Stella paper adornment round the stem, it was put on a beer mat.
Sounds simple but with a time constraint of a couple of minutes, it wasn’t.
Later Marc explained how food and beer interact, emphasising the important role our sense of smell plays in it. Cheese, biscuits, creme brulee and other goodies followed, sipped with Stella… then Hoegaarden and Leffe – purely in the interests of beer/food research.
When we poured ourselves into yellow cabs back to the hotel, my expansive stomach indicated I’d had more than enough.
As I strolled towards Malcolm X Boulevard looking at the stalls and hearing the odd good tune, it felt an awful longer way from the bustle of Times Square than just one subway ride.
There were a few clothes stores, mainly discount ones but others sold designer gear, such as Rocawear and Blac Label, at good prices. Others looked like throwbacks to a bygone era, with pimp-style men’s fur coats, zoot suits and shoes straight out of the Denzel Washington movie American Gangster.
I’d have liked to have stayed in Harlem for some soul food but I had to head back for the main event...
It was held in the New York Public Library on West 42nd Street, with TV crews and live feeds on Facebook and Twitter, 5,000 taxis had been decked out with Stella ads and Times Square was awash with ads and billboards.
Marc was overseeing the bar so I asked how much beer they had. “Four truckloads outside in case this runs out,” he said. Britain had two contestants and, sadly, both fell at the first round... they’d lost that Leuven feeling.
Finally the judges decided on a winner, smiley Kiwi Avril Maxwell, who is now a global ambassador for Stella – and likely to be a judge at world grandmaster events, including one in London.
But as the post-show party started, I wussed out big-time. After the seventh or eighth Stella I didn’t fancy any more.
I sauntered out into the night... after all, there was a frozen Margarita in Viva Pancho just off Broadway and West 44th and it had my name on it.