Do you want your beer served ICE Cold?

Not just Americans. Here in Britain many pub and bar customers have their beer served very cold, often served through those nitrogen cooled taps. This may be OK for lager type beers that youngsters drink, but traditional ales are better at room temperature. By ale I mean the type of hoppy, malty, dark beer such as you get from microbreweries. In the UK we call it "Real Ale", and it is rising in sales, bucking the current flat or declining trend in British beer sales.

I forgot to provide a clear answer to the question, although I had one in mind, as maybe you can guess, it is "NO, I don't want my beer served so cold my gullet will get frostbite when I take a good gulp." Isn't it true that the taste buds which pick up bitter tastes are at the back of the tongue, and to get the benefit of a decent beer you have to take a good gulp and throw it to the back of your mouth? This is what my father told me when I was of beer drinking age, which in his opinion was 16. Those blonde lager beers the kids drink nowadays might as well be sipped because they don't really taste of anything to me.

Americans have long expected beer to be not just chilled but cold, but what I see know with trying to get the beer as close to the freezing point as possible seems to be new. My wife suspects it started in Texas or Arizona where it is hot much of the year and this a freezing cold beer does not stay freezing for long, and is was a novelty.

The ice in the glass place also has ice around the taps many inches thick, to reinforce the selling point that the beer is super cold. My reaction is "that sucks", which is I am sure not what they are going for.

Your wife may be right.

We'd go biking out in the Oklahoma hills in August when it was 95-110°F.

We'd ride sixty or seventy miles and come back to a number three washtub filled to the brim with ice and cans of Bud, Coors and Corona.

Those cans would be too cold to hold, so we did our best to empty them as fast as we could.
Some of us would then ride home, ten more miles or so.

Joe(so irresponsible)Nation

It has been a while since I took chemistry but I think that Ice Water is 32 degrees, these nitro taps can take beer lower, and I think that they do....thus my point. We lived in Arizona for 4 years and visit my brother in San Antonio , my memory is of very cold beer, so maybe new technology (or now cheap technology) allowed those boys and girls to push the temp point of draft beer even lower? There must be a bartender around here who knows about modern tap beer technology, right?

NO!
45 degrees for my IPA or any ale for that matter. Coors had an ad campaign claiming they had the coldest beer around. It boggles the mind.

Oh, I know you're right about the 32°-- I was just agreeing with your wife that the genesis of the really cold beer started in the Texas/Oklahoma area. Some people back then (this is 1990) had insulated mugs which they kept in their freezer. When you drank out of those there were chips of ice in the bottom.

Beer slush!

~~~ I have no doubts that some enterprising bar owners have figured out ways to make beer as cold as physically possible. I also think you are right when you say there can't be any taste left to it at those temperatures.
==
This is also the area of our nation which invented the migraine forming Frozen Margarita......

Joe(AHAHAHHHHHHH Brain Freeze......)Nation

A lot of Americans do, in fact I'd say the majority prefer it "ice cold."

Not me. I like it the way it's served in British pubs. Seems a little cooler than "room temperature," maybe cellar temperature.

But then I don't like any liquid really cold and never use ice cubes at home, unless it's for a glass of whiskey.

The colder the liquid, the less the flavor.

Of course a lot of Americans don't really like the taste of beer which is why they drink piss like Bud or Coors.

I can remember begging sips of beer from my Dad. I think my brother tried once and the bitterness sent him packing. I loved it.

Ice cold beer? God no!

Ya, that is what Hop Jacks serves, which I do not understand 1) doing it and 2) using it as a branding point. This is that they want to be known for, plus serving many of their drinks in cups made of ice. My wife likes the lemon drops.

Fresh Munich beer was a revelation in 1988, and my dad was a beer snob from way back...he used to bring unpasteurized Coors back to Chicago from Denver, had a friend who would get him Olympia Beer, and he drank Augsburger back when it was really good. I thought I knew great beer in 1987, but I was wrong.

My favorite of late. Nut brown ale served just a little chilled. (I like the description someone made about beer being served cellar cold.)

It's really good drinking.

Joe(cheers)Nation

When I still was drinking, I'd thought that British pubs serve beer colder than in Germany.

Here, the temperature is between 7° and 10° Celsius (45 - 50 F) - the more alcohol, the 'higher the temperature. (That's why some Belgian beers are consumed even above 10°C.)

For me, Wurtzburger was head-and-shoulders ahead of Munchener back in the days when I was still drinking. (Haven't had an alcoholic drink in 16 years and 29 days.) Don't recall that I ever tried Augsburger.

One of my favorite bars back in my salad days served its beer very cold, and served it in icy mugs taken right from a freezer. The resulting floating "beer ice" was awesome. Coldest beer in town! And that is a good thing, IMO, when the beer itself is a mediocre adjunct lager beer.

But if the beer is not "lawn mowing" macro beer (i.e., Budweiser, Coors, Miller), but a craft beer, such as an IPA or any ale for that matter, ice cold is not good. It's a sin to order a Guiness, and have it brought -- proudly -- ice cold to the table. These beers have to be cellar temperature or they're just not as good.

One can now get Guinness in cans or bottles.
Or so they say.
I find that neither had the same soft bite nor the bloomie head of a Guinness poured at a pub.
It could be I am missing the feel of a solid wood bar under my elbow, .....but I digress.

In New York City, the cans or bottles are never chilled. Buy, walk back up the hill and enjoy.

In Connecticut, we have to take the six-pack out of the cooler, take it home and leave it on the counter for several hours to warm itself.

Joe(Let's have one and a bit of cold lamb pie.)Nation

ain't nothing better than an ice cold one after a workout on a hot summer day...

"now"? Where are you? Here in the UK, Guinness has been available in cans and bottles for many decades. The draught ("draft") version and the various bottled and canned varieties are all brewed to different recipes, a fairly recent innovation here (10 years or so) has been canned "draught" Guinness with a "widget" (that's what it is called) in the can to make it foamy on top. I read somewhere that the 8% abv Foreign Extra Stout is much esteemed in Nigeria as an aphrodisiac and (for older men) a kind of liquid Viagra.

AHHH memories. I recall driving the boat thgrough the BAy of Fundy with a mesh net overboqrd with a case of Chesterfield Ale. IN BOTTLES!!. The BAy of Fundy was alays correct beer temperature but you always hdda stashe em away from the prop wash.

I was barely able to stomach Guiness until one day, with a room temperature Guiness at hand in an apartment, I was famished , so I drank the Guiness and diswcovered that it wasnt a beverage, it was a meal. Now, I still cant really stand Guiness but Its good to know that this braqnd is there as emergency rations .

I was never a big beer drinker cause only the first sip tasted great, then it was all adownhill as I noted the weird flavors. I especially cannot drink these small restaurant brew pub beers, they all taste like they were made ina dirty bathtub.