When I first heard about the idea of warm beer, I have to say I was a tad apprehensive. To be fair, I learnt about it before I even liked beer, from Asterix in Britain. Impressionable 10 year olds are unlikely to be fond of the idea of beer heated on a stove when even their comic book heros think it’s disgusting. It’s like when I learnt about meat pie floaters (that’s a meat pie floating in pea soup) from a Terry Pratchett book only to discover that they’re real when Joe McCrory (this year’s AUSA president) ordered one at a beer festival.

Thanks to Asterix, my understanding of warm beer was long out of place. The beer that he and Obelix so despised was actually more like mulled ale, which is heated on a stove. However, in reality, warm beer is used to describe beers that are served at cellar temperature, about 10-12 degrees C. So yes, it’s warmer than straight from the fridge, but it’s not particularly hot. And this is how I’ve come to most enjoy my beer.

Most ales benefit from being served a little warmer, as you can taste more when it’s not so cold. Chilling dulls the flavour, which is why cheap crappy beer is usually drunk cold – when it’s warm you can actually taste how bad it is. I rarely refrigerate my beer these days, as I tend to buy flavoursome beer which I want to taste as much of as possible. And of course one of the best styles to enjoy warm is British bitter, seen as the notion of warm beer seems to come from that way.

If you want to try a decent English style bitter, the best recommendation I can make is to pop into Galbraith’s ale house, at the top of Mt Eden Rd, for some of their cask conditioned real ale. They brew some fantastic ale on site, and despite the other great beer available there, it’s always their real ale I return to. Long time readers of this column may remember my review of the bitter and twisted a couple of years ago, which remains a fantastic beer. However, their other beers are definitely worth trying, and this year they’ve also made some great collaborative brews with some other New Zealand craft brewers.