Join host Mikon Haaksman as he travels to Houston, Texas in search of the best beer in the world. In this segment, Mikon visits the West Alabama Ice House - a Houston landmark and hot spot that's been serving ice cold beer for years.
"When Houstonians, or rather, "Brewstonians" want to have a good beer and some good music, they come here to the West Alabama Ice House. What is an Ice House exactly? Well they used to bring ice down from the North down here to the South in the 20's and 30's to these little tin shacks. And some of the people that owned these places got pretty enterprising and decided to sell beer along with it. Now in my opinion this is probably the best place in the South that's an example of an ice house. We should go check it out.
Now to make a great beer joint, there's a few things you absolutely have to have: First, obviously, a big selection of beer. We're a classic ice house. So everything is iced down in beer tubs. We don't have anything on draft - it's all bottled beer, ice cold, all the time. An eclectic crowd. Ok, now where are you from? Italy. Italy? Now are you originally from Italy? Yeah. I came here back in 1974. Wow, great! I'm the first Sicilian hillbilly in my family. Some fun sports. Dogs. A great house band. And if you're hungry, I suggest you come by on a Friday night when you can get a free hot dog. Now you know, to me there's nothing better than having a beer in one hand and a wiener in the other.
The West Alabama Ice house was founded in 1928 and today it's owned by Pete Markantonis and his family. Alright, and now I'm here in the secret lair of the ice house and I'm here with the owner Pete. Now Pete, how long have you owned this place?
Me and my father took this bar over in '86 and he passed away in 2001but we worked it together. And I grew up in the bar business. My dad had bars downtown when I was growing up. This place was built in 1928 and it was an original country gas station slash convenience store. The inside was actually where they would pull Model T's in and it had a Model T lift. It was not a beer joint like it is now. Over time, the neighborhood grew around it. Bigger competitors came in and the only thing that was left was beer.
What actually is an ice house? How did it get it's name? Well, along I-10 an ice house is a distribution place for blocks of ice to put in people's ice boxes before refrigeration.
I lived across the street and I just quit my job and I was having a beer up here on a Wednesday morning. And Pete was stocking beer and he was like, "did I hear you say you're out of a job? Do you wanna work here?" And I said, "no." He said, "good, you start tomorrow."
Our bar's really eclectic. There are all kinds of people from all walks of life. All over Houston. But especially in the Montrose, this is like a mainstay. People come here, just sit back and relax. There's no pressure, there's no you know, clicks. It's just people hanging out drinking beer with their dogs. Everyone was really friendly. I love me some Mikon. And who doesn't, huh? Awesome shirt, dude.
Well, the cool thing about the ice houses in Texas is that you can bring your own booze. You just buy like a Sprite, you know, and you can make your own liquor in it. Which is really cool cause like it's so much cheaper than really going to a bar. And I just found this out. I'm like 35 years old. I found this out, like you know six months ago. I'm like 'what the hell, dude?'
How many types of beer do you guys have here? How many types of beer do we have? Like 50 I would say. Quite a few for an ice house, yeah. Everything's in bottles? Everything's in bottles.
You're at an ice house and I see that you're drinking wine. Yes, well unfortunately this place does not have a liquor license so they only serve beer and wine. I decided to start out easy tonight and go with a little bit of generic wine. Well, no one's perfect.
Alright, so I'm going to have about three or four more of these guys and take a cab and I'm going to find out where they make this stuff. It's delicious."