- Warm beer: most English non-lager draft beer is brewed to taste best at room temperature (not warm!). This is getting out of date now as most beer in UK is cooled, tho maybe not as cold as in the US! I think that's correct, but I'm a wine man myself these days.
+1 on that thought on several grounds:
I learned about beer temperatures when I lived a couple years in Germany in the 70s. The beer I drank in Germany was probably about 50° Fahrenheit (10° Celsius for the rest of the world). Heavenly! On a trip to the UK during that time, I discovered that English beer was somewhat warmer, and I still liked it! As a general proposition, I think
good beer loses a considerable amount of its flavor if chilled to the temperature of most American refrigerators (<40°F/8°C). Stated in pseudo-scientific terms, the optimum drinking temperature of beer is directly related to its quality
, with an upper limit of ~60°F/15°C. That's why commercials for certain mass-marketed American beers imply that it tastes best when "ice cold".
I love beer, but I've basically switched to wine for medical reasons. (I've always liked wine anyway, and it's better than beer for my weight-control program.) Beer supposedly contains substances called purines, which tend to increase the level of uric acid in the blood. If the uric acid level becomes too great, it can cause gout. (I had a minor case of purple big toe last summer, and I can say that it's
not fun.)
Wine has some of the same temperature/taste characteristics as beer. It's often said that Americans drink white wine too cold, and red wine too warm. The reasons: American fridges usually cool to the high-30°F range (ours currently is 38°)—not exactly ""chilled"— and American central-heating system temperatures tend to be higher than those in other parts of the world—thus making "room temperature" something different. (Out of characters)
