h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi,

For those of you who don't know, I'm an American researcher. Though I have been to England twice, it was six years ago, so forgive my ignorance.

I have taken on the difficult but rewarding hobby of brewing my own beer at home. My first brew was ready to drink yesterday; a present from my mother-in-law of an "English ale" kit. Thing is, when I first tasted it after sitting in my fridge for several hours, the flavor seemed severely muted. But after 5 minutes of what I thought of as 'breathing' the flavor improved.

I was told today on a Yahoo! group that ales of this nature, and English ales in particular should be served at 50 deg F, not 35 like in your fridge, so that the flavor comes out.

So... should REAL English ale be served at 50 deg F?

Is that warm? If it is then yes, ale should always be served warm! Just like you'd get in the pub. Never put it in the fridge, that's where lager belongs.

*does a rough calculation to celsius* 50°F ~ 10°C

Sounds about right. needs to be cool (as in cellar) rather than cold (as in refrigerator). If you've not got a cellar, a garage is a good substitute.

I concur, cool but definately not cold. British bitter (northern variety) is not lager

Thank you for the input... I guess we all here in the US drink too much lager from the fridge.

Actually, I think my next batch will be a stout.

Also should be flat. No head, just a white-ish kind of scum floating on top. Water it down a bit, then a bit more, keep going until it tastes truly awful.

Serve at body temperature, that way it gets through your system quicker and you can start recycling your next batch.

Stout actually tastes nice "warm" or out of the fridge.

I have the "warm" beer discussion about 5 times a week with my German and American workmates.

Only one of them has ever had proper beer in proper pub, and she was surprised how "cold"* it was

aarrghhhhhh!

*room temperature

gooo-ooood

Messy in the morning though.

Update:

50 deg F.

Yep.

The guys at the Black Sheep brewery tell you on the tour that they recommend consuming their bottled beers at cellar temparature, of which a useful home approximation can be acheived by placing one bottle in the fridge and one on the kitchen side, mixing them in equal parts at "opening time".
Now - that suggests about 10 celsius is indeed about right, and also represents the cutest and least subtle bit of marketing you're likely to hear.

Specially as, if memory serves me, Black Sheep comes in pint bottles - so you've got to drink two pints at a time or the stuff gets too warm

Oh, and just to be really pedantic - the perfect temperature's supposed to be 12°C / 53°F

A2346266

I thought as much - equal measures of room-temperature (about 20 C?) and fridge temp (about 4 C, surely) , would give 12.
But I wasn't going to quibble over a couple of degrees.

I mentioned this to my bar manager yesterday. Sadly, there's no possibility of us serving our bottled English beers (Holy Grale, Old Speckled Hen, St Peter's Stout, Young's Chocolate Stout, Sam Smith's Nut Brown) at anything but the tonsil-numbing temperatures preferred in this part of the world Our beer coolers and walk-in generally sit at around 35°F.

"I thought as much - equal measures of room-temperature (about 20 C?) and fridge temp (about 4 C, surely) , would give 12."

That's ignoring some simple principals of thermodynamics. Heat flow is a first derivative of time, so you cannot simply average out the two temperatures. The final beer temeprature will be much closer to 20C than to 4.

B

"That's ignoring some simple principals of thermodynamics. Heat flow is a first derivative of time, so you cannot simply average out the two temperatures. The final beer temeprature will be much closer to 20C than to 4.
"

Can we have that in English for us stoopid people please

Hmm...alright. If you drive to London at 30mph and drive back at 10mph, your average speed over the journey is not 20mph. It's 15mph, regardless of the distance.

Heat flow from a warm substance to a cold one works on a similar principle. You've got to take into account that you're dealing with something that has already been divided by time.

B

yikes, now I need an