Sometimes Mayor Bloomberg must feel like a magnet for criticism.

He was ridiculed after choosing Cathie Black as his school's chancellor in November.

He was forced to apologize for the city's response to the epic snow storm in December, after drawing the ire of residents.

Then, earlier this month, Bloomberg was booed after he made an unfortunate joke about Irish-Americans.

Now, even the way he drinks beer is being questioned.

From the New York Post:

Standing inside the just-expanded Brooklyn Brewery yesterday, the mayor revealed that his unorthodox approach to drinking beer requires ice. "I actually put ice in my beer," the mayor said. "Most people don't."

After the crowd reacted with a collective gasp, Bloomberg responded, "I know. I've always done it. I don't think it comes from Boston."

Julie Johnson, editor of All About Beer magazine offered a chilly critique of the mayor's bizarre preference.

She said one should "never" drink beer with ice, "if you want to respect the efforts the brewers put into the beer."

Johnson added that craft beers and ales, like Brooklyn Brewery's, are meant to be served at "cellar temperatures" of 50 to 55 degrees.

Bloomberg showed up at the Brooklyn Brewery, on his 69th birthday, to cut the ribbon on the $8 million expansion, which happened, in part, because of an $800,000 state grant.

So really: what's the big deal? Is this a symptom of New York's growing third-term-itus, or is the ice-in-beer method truly sacrilegious to brew? [Editor's note: we've done it.]

UPDATE: The Times notes that icy beer is totally normal in Thailand.