Bravest On 38

A funny thing happened after 9/11: Firemen, who heretofore occupied the gray matter of pyromaniacs and drunken sorority girls, were lionized. Tragedy breeds heroes, and the red men went beyond duty's call. Three-hundred forty-three firefighters succumbed when the twin towers relented to airplane fuselage, fire and gravity.

This made me want to get drunk. Real drunk. I spent a week sipping a concoction of rum and concentrated orange juice from a French press. Firemen also wanted to get drunk. Real drunk. As distance increases from that September day, firemen are losing lionization and gaining a reputation forlion-sized inebriation: "Road-Rage Attack-Drunk Fireman Punched Passenger in Car," for example, read a typically understated Post headline last April 12. My initial reaction was: Where do firemen get drunk? Bravest on 38.

On a nose-freezing evening, I enlist several friends and head to Bravest. It is not easy. Bravest is located just north of Kips Bay's sprawling Loews-and-Borders mess and the noxious Queens Midtown Tunnel. Seclusion ensures the bar is flavored by neighborhood characters and a hose-wielding clientele.

Entering Bravest could incite a mild-mannered bull to rage: The bar has embraced firemen's telltale primary color, red. There are red lights. The ceiling support columns are painted red. A red, FDNY sign hangs over the bar's entrance. Hell, even the blond waitress is wearing a red t-shirt that reads THANK YOU. We sit at a table and she pads on over to take our order.

Before 7 p.m., Bravest offers an assortment of domestic pints for $1 or $2. We've missed the special, so we peruse the school-sized chalkboard listing dozens of ways to order beer. Bud Ice is on special for $2.50, which is what my friend Aaron orders. Kelly selects a Bass, a bit overpriced at $5.25. I'm intrigued by beer called the "Bravest," also clocking in around the two-dollar range.

"It's an amber ale, like Killian's," the waitress says.

"So, it's Killian's but called Bravest?" I say. The mid 90s are not so distant. Back then, Coors' expert advertising campaign tricked me into believing that Killian's was, in fact, handcrafted by an Irish man named George who brewed Ireland's finest suds, not Coors Light colored by red dye.

"No, it's like Killian's, not Killian's."

"But it's an ale?"

"Yes, it's called an amber ale."

"I'll have one."

The waitress flits away to fill our order, and I take the time to examine my surroundings. One wall is filled with American flags and photos of stoic firemen. Statues of firefighters heroically swinging axes and wielding fire hoses commandeer shelf space. Yankees-hat-sporting twentysomethings and off-duty firemen sit at the open, four-sided bar. They're enjoying nachos and burgers from the kitchen, washing down the grease with post-work pick-me-ups. "American Pie," fittingly, slips from the jukebox. In Williamsburg, this would be ironic. Here, the décor is so earnest it's scary, not unlike someone who wholeheartedly believes in leather pants' transformative power.

Take the restroom. While waiting for the waitress to deliver our beer, I investigate. Not surprisingly, there's a condom machine painted red (perhaps a nod to the sign on the women's bathroom: "I [HEART] Firefighters"). That's fine. What's not is an image far more forbidding than sweaty fireman sex: A poster features four horsemen of the apocalypse riding into the World Trade Center ruins, towering above weeping firemen. A beleaguered American flag waves over the apocalyptic scene. Yes, I agree: the World Trade Center was a tragedy second to none. But the four horsemen? While I'm holding my penis? Please.

I zip up and head to the table. The waitress soon delivers a tray laden with frosty beer. I sip my Bravest.

"What'd you think?" she asks.

"It was pretty good," I say, surprised. Unlike Killian's, the Bravest beer is smooth and slurpable; it's easy to see how customers could drink five more and sing along to Don McLean. Which is the bar's point. In its peculiar American way, Bravest is a comfy patriotic outpost on a liberal island. Here, firemen quietly drown hot days with cold, cheap beer, a blue-collar capstone to a blue-collar job. Bravest relishes a no-bullshit clientele, eschewing kitsch hounds and card-carrying members of the insincerity movement. This is equal parts compliment and warning, for the next 90-point Post headline could easily read: "9/11-Hating Hipster Pummeled in FDNY Bar Fight."

-Joshua M. Bernstein

Bravest on 38, 700 2nd Ave. (38th St.),212-683-3766.