When it comes to beer temperature, advertisements and anecdotes may have you believing that the only way to serve a brew is ice cold. However, if you spend some time browsing the taprooms of your local Seattle breweries, you'll notice that craft brews usually come with recommended serving temperatures. Before you crack open another cold one, scan through our temperature guide below to enjoy your favorite beers at their optimal temperatures.
Ice Cold, Slightly Chilled, or Room Temperature? Understanding Beer Temperatures
Due to the abundance of advertising for American macro lagers, most beer drinkers move through life believing that ice cold beer is the pinnacle of beer enjoyment. While this is absolutely true for light lagers, many of your favorite types of beers won't showcase their best characteristics at lower temperatures. Just as each type of beer is brewed to its own unique specifications, different brews should also be served at different temperatures.
The Effects of Temperature on Beer
In order to understand the significance of specific beer temperature suggestions, it's important to learn how temperature affects the flavor, mouthfeel, and characteristics of beer. Only then can you truly appreciate why you need to start serving your favorite brews at the temperatures we recommend.
Too Cold
It's difficult to argue against chilling your beer; icy-cold beer can be especially refreshing on a hot, summer day. However, we believe beer should be enjoyed for its flavor; save the icy-cold temperatures for a glass of water and serve your beer chilled, but not too cold. When you serve your beer below its recommended temperature, you lose out on flavors and aromas that could leave your beer tasteless and with a thin mouthfeel.
In addition to stifling the aromas and flavors of your beer, you can also make your beer taste worse by over-chilling it. Cold temperatures tend to enhance bitterness, dryness, and carbonation. This can contribute to the refreshing feeling you get from drinking a cold one, but it can also create harsh textures, haziness, and an unpleasant drinking experience with the wrong brew.
Too Warm
We've all had a brush or two with warm beer in our time, and we know the experience is less-than-ideal. This is because warmer temperatures cause a decrease in carbonation and hop bitterness, which can result in a flat, unpalatable beverage. While enjoying beer warm is not recommended (unless you're taking it back to the 1800's and whipping up a hot ale flip), warmer temperatures do tend to give a starring role to the flavors and aromas of a brew.
Just Right
While there isn't one universal temperature that suits all beers, there are a few basic rules you can follow to maximize the flavor of your brews without sacrificing their thirst-quenching qualities. For example, all beers should be served between 38-55° F. It's also important to serve your brews a degree or two colder than your target temperature. This is to accomodate for the warming effects of the drinker's hands and any warmth that the glass may give off.
Here are a couple simple rules for serving brews:
Serve lagers colder than ales
Serve strong beers warmer than weak beers
Serve dark beers warmer than light beers
Proper Serving Temperatures for Every Beer
Amber Lager
Amber lagers and other darker lagers taste their best at slightly warmer temperatures. This includes Vienna-style, Oktoberfest, Marzen-style and amber lagers. Our recommended serving temperature is 40° to 45° F. A stronger brown lager, such as a doppelbock or a dunkel, will perform best at 50° F.
Belgian-Style Dubbel, Tripel, and Quadrupel
These strong Belgian-style brews tend to be malty and yeast-forward. Our recommended serving temperature for dubbels and quadrupels is 50° to 55° F. The tripel tends to be spicier in character, lighter in body, and paler in color; it tastes best at cooler temperatures, between 40° to 45° F.
Blonde and Cream Ale
Blonde and cream ales have a light body and mouthfeel and are best enjoyed between 40° to 45° F.
Light Lager and American Macro Lager
Drink these as cold as possible! Anywhere in the 33° to 40° F range is best for macro and light lagers; this is around the average refrigerator temperature, so you can just pop these in the fridge and enjoy. That being said, the true sweet spot for light lagers is really between 36° to 38° F, which happens to be the temperature of most Seattle breweries' draft beer systems.
India Pale Ale and New England IPA
Because IPAs and NEIPAs tend to have a wide and variable range of flavors and sub-styles, you'll want to look at the brewer's recommendations for your best drinking temperature. You don't want to overchill these, or you'll lose out on all the tropical, citrusy, bright, piney, and herbaceous goodness that's characteristic of these styles. We recommend keeping things in the 45° to 50° F range so you get the most out of the flavors and aromas of your IPAs and NEIPAs.
Pale Ale
Pale ales tend to have a medium body and bitterness, and use bolder malt choices. We recommend enjoying American pale ales in the range of 45° to 50° F. English-style and ESB (extra special bitter) pale ales can be served between 50° to 55° F to maximize their richer flavor and fuller body.
Pilsner and Pale Lager
If you think that pilsners and pale lagers are most delicious when you get them on tap, you're right. For most pale lagers and pilsners, 38° to 45° F is the ideal serving range. This means that these beers, poured from the draft beer system and gently warmed by your hands on the pilsner glass, are served in their ideal temperature range at your favorite Seattle breweries (in case you were looking for another reason to visit us!)
Sour, Lambic, and Gose
Because sours come in many funky forms, their ideal serving temperatures can vary greatly. You'll want to check with the brewery for recommended temperature suggestions for each individual sour you wish to serve. However, you'll generally want to keep lambics, framboises, krieks, peches, and other fruited sours within 40° to 50° F, while a gose will fare better on the lower end of that range. Wilder sours may require some experimentation!
Stout, Porter, and Black Ale
Stouts, porters, and black ales are best served between 45° and 55° F. You'll want to serve nitro stouts on the lower end, between 40° to 45° F. In general, if you're looking to bring out coffee, chocolate, or other robust flavors, we recommend keeping them in the 50° to 55° F range. Over-chilling these types of beers will result in a significant reduction of flavor, so keep them on the warmer side.
Wheat Beer
If you're serving an American wheat ale, Belgian-style wit, or Berliner-style weisse, we recommend keeping your temperatures in the 40° to 45° F range. You can serve a hefeweizen at a slightly higher temp, though we recommend keeping it below 50° F.
Served too warm and the beer is flat, but served too cold, it will lack in flavor. Avoid a Goldilocks and the Three Bears (or should we say Goldilocks and the Three Beers?) situation the next time you set out brews for your buds; follow our temperature guide and you'll be sure to do it just right. Alternatively, you can leave serving beer to the experts - come visit us in the taproom at Lowercase Brewing and taste that perfect-temperature brew today.
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