Woe, Canada — Freddy’s Bar has joined the boycott of Brooklyn
Brewery beer and is replacing the hometown suds with Labatt Blue.
The Prospect Heights bar will pull out its Brooklyn Lager tap after selling
its last pint lager today, citing brewery owner Steve Hindy’s support
of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development.
Ratner owns the building occupied by Freddy’s — which will be
torn down to make room for a proposed arena for Ratner’s Brooklyn-bound
New Jersey Nets.
Hindy, already facing a Web-based boycott of his beer because he supports
Ratner’s arena plan, earned further wrath last month when he told
The Brooklyn Papers that he supports the entire $3.5-billion project —
the largest development in Brooklyn history.
Ratner sells Hindy’s beer at the Meadowlands.
“To [Brooklyn Brewery], it’s all just about business accounts,
but to us, it’s about our home,” said Freddy’s manager
Donald O’Finn.
Hindy hit back that O’Finn was shortchanging his customers, calling
the mainstream Canadian Labatt Blue “generic.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that Freddy’s thinks that selling
a beer owned by the biggest beer conglomerate in the world is better for
them and their community than Brooklyn Lager,” Hindy said.
O’Finn will remove the green-and-white Brooklyn Brewery tap from
the bar at 8 pm Monday night.
