If you are a craft beer lover living in New York City, do yourself a favor and get over to Pony Bar as soon as possible. This absolute gem of a bar is a bit off the beaten path — corner of 10th Avenue and 45th Street — but totally, utterly and absolutely worth the trek. The bar’s impressive menu of 20 rotating craft beers helpfully indicates the ABV for each of their brews, and for those interested (and really, if you’re making a point of coming here you know you will be) you can request a scorecard to keep track of every beer you imbibe at the bar. The bar will then hold onto the scorecard for you when you leave, and if you eventually consume 100 different beers you receive a sweet shirt and membership into Pony’s vaunted elite beer drinker’s club.
In addition to being the only bar I am aware of in Manhattan specifically dedicated to craft beers, Pony’s prices are unheard of and unbeatable. Literally every single beer they offer on tap — regardless of ABV — costs $5. I have never been to a bar in which craft beer was offered at such a bargain price across the board. Clearly the 10th Avenue location is the primary factor in this pricing schematic, but it certainly helps make the hike over there that much more worth your while.
To be able to enter a bar in New York and be confronted with a menu of 20 new beers I’ve never tasted is truly a dream come true for this craft beer aficionado, and I look forward to many more lazy Saturday afternoons of new beer discoveries at insanely reasonable prices.
