Steven Desjardins opined: > You know, whenever I go to the UK I usually beer at every meal (just > for cultural reasons) and I've never really found it to be warm. It's > usually cold, just not "ice cold" like they tend to serve it in the US.
As any good barman (barperson? bartender?) will tell you, draught bitter (and most other draught beers) is best served at "cellar temperature", roughly 50 degrees F (10 degrees C). Most bottled beers should be served at around the same temperature. The major exception is Guinness, which should be served cooler (40F, 5C). As for the "ice in Malt whisky" snobbery: given the choice of drinking a single malt undiluted at tropical room temperature, an inferior blended scotch with ice, or a single malt with a small amount of ice in it, I'll happily drink the good stuff with ice. Perhaps better still would be to dilute the whisky with chilled water, but guess what happens very soon after you drop the ice in the glass? As an aside: I've noticed that when the Scots migrate abroad to places with wonderful climates (New Zealand, California, ...) many choose the most inhospitable parts of the region. Here in the San Francisco bay area many Scots settled in Ben Lomond, So instead of the warmth and sunshine available ten or twenty miles away, they get rain, fog, and precipitous slopes. Sheer masochism.
