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http://www.ratebeer.com/Story.asp?StoryID=479
| quote: | With all the different styles found in the world of beer, the question of serving temperature comes up fairly often. There are, however, very few absolute truths when it comes to proper serving temperature. Individual drinkers will have individual preferences and these might vary quite a bit from the generally accepted norms. So mainly this guide will focus on the accepted norms, and you as the drinker can take them to heart to any degree you wish.
The first thing that should be addressed, however, are two very common myths. The first is that beer needs to be served very cold. The macrobrewers want you to believe this, and here’s why. The sensation of coldness inhibits the tongue’s taste receptors. Since macrobrews started positioning their products based on any feature they could imagine besides taste, the need to neutralize taste became important. An alcohol delivery system doesn’t need taste. In fact, taste usually gets in the way. A cold refresher could be anything, and in fact alternatives like soda, iced tea or water generally have a less offensive taste than macrobrew. So again, numbing those tastebuds is important. As for what beer marketers mean when they say a beer “has a cold taste”, your guess is as good as ours. So no, beer doesn’t not need to be near frozen. Good beer in fact should not be near frozen.
The other myth is that English beer is served at room temperature, or “warm”. It’s not. It is served at cellar temperature, which is between 12-14C. Room temperature is 21C. That’s a big difference.
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