The Brooklyn Paper: Kelso brewer discovers that no good pint goes unpunished!
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Kelso brewer discovers that no good pint goes unpunished!

By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Paper
The Brooklyn Paper / Aisha Gaward
Kelly Taylor, the brewmaster for Kelso of Brooklyn, came up with a great idea to spur blood donation — but the NY Blood Center said thanks but no thanks.

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Who said you shouldn’t drink and donate?

Actually, the New York Blood Center, which has pulled out of the Kelso of Brooklyn’s “Pint for Pint” blood donation drive after reading about the brewery’s effort in The Brooklyn Paper.

“They said we degraded the process of giving blood,” said Kelso of Brooklyn brewmaster Kelly Taylor, whose company promised blood donors a free pint of beer after they donated a pint of blood at a blood center facility.

“They read the story in The Brooklyn Paper and went all PC on us,” Taylor added. “It was like, ‘We don’t want to encourage people to give blood and drink beer.’ Well, why not? These are adults.

“And what’s wrong with beer, anyway? The families that need blood don’t care how we get the blood. They just want the blood.”

The Blood Center did not return a call on late Thursday afternoon.

Taylor said the organization demanded that Kelso remove its name from any announcements about the “Pint for Pint” promotion, which does not actually encourage people to give blood and then immediately replace the missing fluid with beer.

Brooklyn Historical Society

Under the rules, blood donors must take their Blood Center receipt to a participating pub sometime over the following few weeks to claim his or her free pint.

The Blood Center appears to be the only group that’s queasy about the Kelso effort.

“After your article came out, a few more bar owners called and said they wanted to participate,” Taylor said. “I had nothing but positive feedback until the Blood Center suddenly objected.”

Taylor is pushing on with the promotion, offering coupons that will result in a free beer when coupled with a blood donation receipt.

Eyeglass Direct

But because the Blood Center objected, instead of providing a direct link to a list of local donation centers, Taylor’s Web site,www.beerhelps.net, instructs people to do a Google search for “blood donation locations.”

The same New York Blood Center list typically comes up, he said.

Participating bars are: The Brazen Head in Cobble Hill; Spuyten Duyvil, d.b.a., and Fette Sau in Williamsburg; Waterfront Ale House in Brooklyn Heights; Moonshine and Tini Wine Bar in Red Hook; and Bierkraft in Park Slope.

©2009 Community Newspaper Group

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