Those Darn Frozen Glasses

Dear Bartender,

I see you have a nice beer selection – great! I'm excited to indulge. But you’re doing it a disservice. When you serve those delicious craft beers in frozen glasses, you may as well be stabbing that hand-crafted love in the heart.  

When something is ice cold, it’s difficult to taste. The American behemoth breweries know this, and encourage their customers to consume their product ice cold. They even go so far as to create visual cues on their containers to help customers ensure the beer inside is as frigid as possible, thereby void of flavor.

They seem well aware that some customers find their beer’s flavor unappealing. These are customers who don’t know any better (to no fault of their own), and are conditioned to believe all beer must be drank ice cold.

Just the other day, a woman at work said, “I don’t generally like the flavor of beer…when I have one every now and then it has to be ice cold.” Unfortunately this co-worker of mine, like many others, fall victim to the conditioning of American beer advertisements.

Providing frozen glasses to patrons of mass produced light lagers makes perfect sense. But for me and other craft lovers who want to embrace the flavor of our beers, a frozen glass is not welcome. If I want ice cold refreshment on a hot day, I’d order an ice water or soda.

You want me to wait until my frozen beer warms up? No. I will not sit here and watch the ice from the glass melt into my beer, watering it down to a thin, dulled version of its former self.

Just as wine is not served in frozen glasses, neither should craft beer. It’s not a matter of being snooty. It’s simply respecting the ingredients in an artisanal product that are meant to shine.

This does not mean I want my beer completely warm. While ideal serving temperatures vary across styles, chilled is generally more than acceptable across all styles.

So please, encourage us to visit your establishment more by showing the respect for the product I, and other craft beer fans, love. Don’t suffocate its flavor. Keep that chilled glassware for mass-produced lawn-mower beer, and hold room-temperature glasses for the rest of us. When we order, all you have to do is ask if we’d like a chilled or non-chilled glass. Easy as that.

To patrons: If the craft beer you order comes in an unwanted frozen glass, send it back. The only way we will change this practice at bars and restaurants is to speak up and educate.